Only a few hours after it was announced that Devotion – the latest game from Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games – would be getting a digital re-release on GOG, the platform’s owner CD Projekt have, in the last few hours, reversed the decision. Making what should be seen as a dramatic U-turn, the company states that the game will in fact not be made available via the digital distribution platform. Providing the brief update via GOG’s official Twitter account, the companyclaimthat they had received “many messages from gamers” which appears to have been enough for the company to reverse the decision on listing the 2019, first-person horror title.
Devotion originally released in February of last year for PC and was met with a fairly positive reception around the time. Events took a turn for the dramatic, however, when the game was pulled from its initial platform of Steam a mere week after release after several players review bombed the game. A vast majority of said player-base accusing the game of including a reference to current Chinese president Xi Jinping. Searching for the game on Steam provides zero results, though the soundtrack remains listed. Despite Red Candle Gamesissuing a statementfive months later, in which they declared their intentions to remove the asset with an updated version of the game, Devotion has so far not resurfaced.
Naturally, it looked hopeful that GOG would provide a second opportunity for Red Candle’s single-player game to gain traction, but skimming through the comments, it’s clear that many users are (at the very least) skeptical on CD Projekt’s rather-vague reasoning for the hasty U-turn. As you might expect, accusations are already running rampant that the game was refused entry due to its past frictions with certain players, though it’s important to note that that has so far not been confirmed.
Nevertheless, this is yet another piece of bad publicity for CD Projekt as a whole in what has been a turbulent week for the company’s development arm, CD Projekt Red and the team’s recently-released and massively-anticipated title, Cyberpunk 2077. Despite the game performing particularly well on PC, the game has come under scrutiny for its below-par console ports, specifically on the base PS4 and Xbox One. It got so bad the company had to issuean apologyover the game’s dire state. And things have not gotten any better with many users on the PS4 platform having their request for a refund, outright denied by Sony themselves. This was after CD Projekt Red themselves advised on looking for a refund.
All of which comes on top of the revelation that prior to release the company allegedly prevented media outlets and review channels online – whom were in possession of a review copy of Cyberpunk 2077 – from using their own recorded footage in aid of their reviews. Instead requiring critics to use CDPR’s own B-roll footage and accompanying, pre-packaged assets. Cyberpunk 2077 did eventually release last Thursday, December 10 across PS4, Xbox One, PC & Stadia, on the back ofnumerous delaysand while the game is being received well for the most part, needless to say CD Projekt’s public reputation over the past week or so has taken a considerable hit.
