Harvard University's Harvard-Yenching Library, the largest university library for East Asian studies outside of Asia, has added Red Candle Games' two titles to its collection: Detention and Devotion.
In a Facebook post, Red Candle said that it was an "incredible honor" and that "As game designers, never have we thought that our works could one day be added to [this library's] prestige collection."
Red Candle also took the opportunity to address the state of the studio after controversy led Devotion to be removed from Steam: "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."
Detention and Devotion are both atmospheric horror games set in Taiwan and heavily influenced by East Asian culture. While the former is a 2D sidescroller, the latter is first-person atmospheric horror. TechRaptor's Samantha Ooi compared Devotion to P.T. and What Remains of Edith Finch, while also noting the game's authentic capture of Taiwanese households during the 80s.
Devotion was removed from Steam last year due to commentary on Chinese president Xi Jinping, specifically comparing him to Winnie the Pooh, and hasn't returned since. Despite this, it will still be preserved in this library.
The Harvard-Yenching Library is a large research center at Harvard. It has different Asia collections like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean collections and special collections like Chinese Rare Books. This addition indicates that the library considers East Asian videogames as legitimate an artifact to preserve as other media.
What do you think of the Harvard-Yenching library preserving Red Candles' titles, especially Devotion given it's been pulled from Steam? Did you ever get a chance to play Devotion? Let us know in the comments below!
