Horror game Devotion pulled from Steam after Winnie-the-Pooh controversy

Over the weekend, developer Red Candle Games found itself at the center of controversyafter players discovered disparaging remarks about Xi Jinping, the president of China, in the studio’s recently released horror game, Devotion. Now, after an intense review bombing of the game from Chinese players, Devotion has been removed entirely from Steam.

Taiwan-based Red Candle called the inclusion of a poster that mocked China’s president “purely an accident” and apologized for including artwork that translated to “Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron.” Xi is reportedly highly sensitive to comparisons to Pooh, and Chinese censors have cracked down on social media posts that liken the president to the bear.

In a third statement released today on Steam, the studio said, “the whole team of Red Candle Games bears the responsibility of this awfully unprofessional mistake. It is not Red Candle’s vision to secretly project extensive ideology, nor is it to attack any person in the real world.”

Red Candle added, “It is our genuine hope that everyone can remain calm and shift the focus back to the game’s core message, which can be obtained through playing experience of Devotion.”

That will be difficult at this stage, as Devotion is no longer available on Steam. In a statement posted to Steam, the developer said that it had pulled the title from sale to conduct a review of the game’s content:

Due to technical issues that cause unexpected crashes and among other reasons, we are pulling Devotion off from steam store to have another complete QA check. At the same time we’d like to take this opportunity to ease the heightened pressure in our community resulted from our previous Art Material Incident, our team would also review our game material once again making sure no other unintended materials was inserted in. Hopefully this would help all audience to focus on the game itself again upon its return.

Red Candle has also apparently removed or made private all official trailers for Devotion on YouTube. A playlist that previously featured three videos for the game are no longer available.

Negative response to Devotion has carried over to Red Candle’s other horror game on Steam, Detention, which has been bombarded with negative reviews in recent days.

Update (Feb. 25, 6 p.m. ET): This story has been updated to include a statement from Red Candle Games explaining why Devotion was pulled from Steam.