Red Candle Games have announced that Devotion will be added to the Harvard University library.

For those unfamiliar, in February 2019 Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games were accused of placing hidden messages in their horror game Devotion, mocking the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As the game centers around a cult, others felt Devotion as a whole was a critique or mockery of the Chinese government, and its supporters in mainland China.

The game’s publisher, Indieevent, later had their business licence revoked by the Chinese government. In July 2019 the developer confirmed the game would not be returning to sale.

Now, Red Candle Games have announced the Devotion (along with their earlier title Detention), will be added to the Harvard-Yenching Library for East Asian studies.

“It is an incredible honour which belongs to not only Red Candle but also our supporters/players worldwide,” Red Candle Games stated on Facebook. “Special thank to the invitation from Harvard-Yenching Library and the assistance from James Cheng, Prof. David Der-wei Wang, Xiao-he Ma, and Yedong Chen for making it possible.”

The developer also described what an honor it was, and how despite the hardships they will continue to develop games.

“Harvard-Yenching Library, formally founded in 1928, is known as the largest Eastern Asian library maintained by any American university. As game designers, never have we thought that our works could one day be added to its prestige collection. While we truly appreciate the recognition, we had also taken this opportunity to rethink the possibilities that our games could achieve.

For the past one year, we are sorry for making our community worried. Although the current status might not be ideal, we are still here and that nothing has changed – we are and will always develop games with the same passion.

Last but not the least, we’d like to express our gratitude toward our partners, friends and families, especially a big thank you to all fans who still believe in Red Candle Games. It’s a tough year for many of us, but we will keep going, and hopefully in the future we could share more works with you all.”