Devotion Dev Teases Its Next Game

Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games has had a busy few days, launching its own e-shop and putting Devotion back on sale following the game's removal from Steam in 2019. Today, it took to Twitter to tease what's next for the team, showing off a brief look at the new project it teased back in December.

Although many assumed the studio would return to the horror genre – with Red Candle having worked on both Detention and Devotion in recent years – the early footage instead appears to be something very different for the team, hinting at a 2D action game. The brief teaser clocks in at just 12 seconds long, showing two characters facing off before what appears to be a fierce battle.

According to the caption, the footage is still very much a work-in-progress, so it's worth understanding that it's subject to change. However, what's here already offers a very different style to the studio's previous releases, boasting a colorful backdrop with cartoony aesthetics. Not much else is revealed in the short snippet of gameplay, with Red Candle Games evidently wanting to offer a small taster of what it's cooking up now that Devotion is back in players' hands.

The developer made headlines across the industry following the release of Devotion, with the studio having to remove the game from Steam after a joke comparing Chinese President Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh caught traction online. Back in December, the team attempted to republish the game via GOG. However, the storefront opted to back out of distributing the title at the last minute, gaining a lot of backlash from customers. The developer has finally managed to get the game back out to players through its own site, where it's also selling its previous game, Detention. Upon announcing its e-shop, it also revealed that future projects would be published on the store as well.

For those who never played Red Candle Games' former two projects, Detention is a creepy, side-scrolling horror where players have to solve the mysteries of a school haunted by evil creatures. It mostly focuses on solving puzzles, hiding from monsters, and pursuing the eerie mysteries that lie at the center of its narrative. Meanwhile, Devotion is a surreal, first-person adventure where players assume the role of a screenwriter named Feng Yu. Investigating what happened to his daughter, Yu must navigate through a twisted version of his apartment block, confronting sinister apparitions along the way.

Frictional Games has brought nightmares to life since its founding in 2006. The creators of multiple horror-laden titles, such as SOMA, Frictional Games is an independent studio based in Sweden. The studio is well-known and beloved for its ability to strike fear into those who play its titles.

The studio notably doubted itself after the commercial release and success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. They enlisted the help of development studio The Chinese Room to develop Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, which struggled to achieve the same level of abject horror from the original title. Since Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs struggled critically, Frictional Games placed itself back in the driver's seat for SOMA and Amnesia: Rebirth.