Red Candle Games is on track to release yet another psychological horror experience. The Taiwanese studio behind the sleeper hit Detention has now teased their next project Devotion with an enigmatic trailer.
The game is a throwback to Taiwan in the 80s which is visible right from the start of the video. Blaring commercials and old-school TV shows take up the bulk of the trailer before the camera slowly pans out to reveal an empty apartment and finally finishes with a piece of art. The apartment wasn’t always abandoned and used to belong to a family of 3 for whom religion is a major part of life. You’re tasked with exploring the nostalgia-filled house but apparently one day the house turned into a real-life nightmare and you’re tasked to find out what happened.
The game is the second game that the studio will release, the first being Detention, an often overlooked but critically acclaimed horror game. The previous game was set in the 1940s in Taiwan during a period called the White Terror. The game used a lot of psychological horror instead of jumpscares, to give you a re al sense of dread and isolation. One of the reasons how the game scared you is that there are hardly any people to be found. You’re completed isolated while in a school trying to solve a mystery.
The new game will do a few things differently from the first one, the main difference being the jump to 1st person. Detention used a 2D art style to convey its message but this time the developers decided to go full 3D and use the first-person camera to immerse the player in the world and story even more. The game will still focus on the same gameplay elements that have you solving puzzles and mysteries to advance while instilling a form of dread on you with well-written psychological horror.
The developers have stated that despite the games being horror games, they want the games to convey the feelings that they have for the homeland. They want to use the gaming medium as a tool to share more on the history of Taiwan and want people to experience the place that they call home, despite the games being terrifying.
Devotion has not been given a release date yet but more updates will come in the future. If you haven’t played Detention than I highly recommend doing so, even if you’re not into horror, and it’s only a couple of bucks on Steam right now.
