Devotion

Devotion’s defining characteristic is its ability to submerge a player in the mood it creates. It is a morbid experience worth having.

Devotion is terrifying experience backed by a compelling narrative that has a a new lease on life after spending two years removed from sale. Horror fans would do well not to miss it a second time.

We may have no experience of 1980s Taiwan, but Devotion carries the tang of authenticity in both the sharply observed detail of its setting and its more imaginative flourishes, including a gorgeous interactive storybook episode. [Issue#331, p.122]

Home is where the heart is, and Devotion is a shining example of what the horror genre is capable of.

Devotion is short and intense, able to tell a deep story in an original and touching way.

It’s incredibly easy for people from a western audience (like myself) to dismiss most games from mainland Asia as mobile-based and profit-driven, ignoring the potential indie gems coming from a region rich in cultural history. If you’re after captivating, slow-paced horror with a brilliantly unique cultural perspective and a story surpassing many horror flicks out there, Devotion answers your prayers.

Feeling like a successful meeting between Silent Hill 2 and what Remains of Edith Finch, Devotion is magnificently written and disturbing experience. A fantastic, scary, immersive first-person horror journey that you can jump in unquestionably.

Devotion is a pretty good horror game, full of surprises and tension. We didn’t enjoy that much the walking simulator part of it, but we did enjoy it overall.

Devotion is another great horror outing for Red Candle Games. After years of waiting, I thought I was finally ready to engage in whatever terrors these Taiwanese developers had planned - I was wrong.

Devotion is a fantastic psychological horror game that’s short, concise, and well-paced from start to finish. It's a tightly woven story about a Taiwanese family succumbing to mental anguish and slowly breaking down over the course of its three-hour runtime. It’s not always the most exciting game to play – specifically, when it becomes more of a scavenger hunt adventure – but the highs are extremely high and far more frequent than the occasional lows.

Devotion’s tale of fractured memories and buried secrets provides a dark, compelling look into the depths of human frailty and desperation. It doesn’t quite reach the heights its developer achieved with Detention, but it’s a well-crafted first-person journey to a strange and unexpected place.

Despite the controversy Devotion is a gem in the horror landscape that we hope we'll be available again soon. Red Candle Games craft a little masterpiece in which the quality of experience like P.T. And Layers of Fear resonates.

Overall, Devotion may prove disappointing for anyone hoping for the next big Indie Horror game, as the moments where the game forgets itself and tries to adhere to traditional horror tend to be the weakest points. Instead, Devotion should be praised for conveying a tragic story that emphasizes the far more effective approach of psychological horror, with long moments of dread and discomfort that tend to have a more lasting impression than the brief startling of a ghost popping around the corner.

Devotion succeeds because it’s an understandably human tale with misery, not murder or monsters, at the heart of it all. It is a tad short, particularly when compared to Detention, and while the somewhat ambigious ending might prove a turn-off for some, it’s still chilling, unsettling and heart-breaking in equal measure.

One of the best survival horror games of the generation, that’s frequently terrifying but also surprisingly nuanced and intelligent when it comes to its storytelling.