The Taiwanese horror gameDevotionwas pulled from Steam last year after aneaster egg making fun of Chinese president Xi Jinpingwas discovered, leading to review bombs and the game’s publisher Indievent losing its business license. Now, a year after it was first released,Devotion’s developers Red Candle Games have announced the game will be preserved by the Harvard-Yenching Institute.
Devotionhad players explore a 1980’s Taiwan apartment complex “lost in time” that “gradually shift[s] into a hellish nightmare” according to Red Candle Games' July 04, 2025 Tweet when it was first released. The game was pulled that July due to its infamous easter egg comparing Jinping to Winnie the Pooh and calling him a “moron,” but the studio’s first gameDetentionfrom 2017 is still available on Steam alongside both soundtracks.
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Red Candle Games announced that bothDevotionandDetentionwill be preserved on Twitter Thursday after receiving a confirmation letter from the Harvard-Yenching Library’s librarian James Cheng. The organized library kept by the Harvard-Yenching Institute was first established as the Chinese-Japanese Library in 1928, and is an independent foundation “dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences” according to its website.
The story behindDevotion’s initial censorship is not an unusual one.Winnie the Pooh is entirely banned in Chinabecause of the connections made to Jinping, leader of the Communist Party of China that has an immense amount of control over the nation’s politics, access to information, and overall media landscape.
That control has led to unrest across China, including the pro-independence protests in Hong Kong that gained widespread attention starting last year. Blizzard Entertainment was criticized forbanning professionalHearthstoneplayer Blitzchungafter he spoke up in favor of the Hong Kong protests.
Devotion’s removal from Steam last year may also have been a harbinger for things to come. Many Chinese game developers are concerned that Steam as it currently stands may soon disappear because ofValve developing a China-exclusive version of Steamthat will only release titles in-line with the country’s licensing and censorship laws.
Thus it’s lucky that the Harvard-Yenching Institute has decided to archive these Taiwanese titles. Infamous easter egg aside,Devotionwas one of the mostintense and scary games from 2019, and it’s important that ephemeral games (particularly from independent developers) are preserved like any other works of art.
