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CD Projekt Red Backlash Continues After Suddenly Pulling Devotion From GOG Amid Alleged Chinese Pressure

CD Projekt Red has landed itself in rather hot waters recently. After the rather messy and disorganised refund process for Cyberpunk 2077, the Polish company has seemingly added fuel to its own fire with its decision to remove Taiwanese horror game Devotion from GOG earlier this week.

Red Candle Games, the developer behind Devotion, announced that the game would come out on GOG on 18 December.

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Within just hours later, GOG, which is owned by CDPR, made a counter-announcement stating that the game will be removed from the digital platform’s release slate “after receiving many messages from gamers”.

For context, Devotion itself is a rather controversial game, depending on who the audience might be.

Released in 2019, the first-person psychological horror game was met with critical acclaim within the community for its graphic and deep-reaching commentary on the rule of the Chinese government over Taiwan in the 1980s. It evoked somewhat of an uproar in China as it made a mockery of then-president Xi Jinping.

Despite the controversy the game evoked, it still became somewhat of a cult classic among the global gaming community, and earned the unique honour of being preserved in the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University, alongside Red Candle’s other game, Detention.

Regardless, this decision sparked an outrage within the gaming community who were looking forward to Devotion‘s release on GOG. Many argued that CD Projekt Red contradicted itself by releasing a game that presented an opposition towards an oppressive government-like entity in Cyberpunk 2077, yet could take down a game with a similar underlying tone for some strange reason.

Other arguments also suggest that the company may be trying to avoid having GOG removed from China, who does command a sizeable gaming audience too.

Neither CD Projekt Red nor Red Candle Games have given further statements regarding the state of Devotion.

However, not all is doom and gloom for the Taiwanese developer. Much earlier this month, Red Candle announced that it is currently hard at work on a new game, while Detention has just been released as a live-action TV series on Netflix.