There is a unique kind of horror that doesn’t come from monsters under the bed, but from the silent, oppressive weight of history. It’s a feeling Taiwanese studio Red Candle Games has mastered since its founding in 2015. While many horror games trade in universal fears, Red Candle’s power stems from their specific, unflinching commitment to exploring Taiwanese culture, history, and folklore. They don’t just want to scare you; they want to show you a world often unseen in video games. Through the martial law terror of Detention, the familial decay of Devotion, and the Taopunk vengeance of Nine Sols, they have established themselves as some of the most vital and courageous storytellers in the medium.

Better Ask for a Hall Pass

Detention is Red Candle Games’ first title, set in 1960’s Taiwan. The country was under martial law during a period known as The White Terror. 140,000 people were imprisoned or executed by the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party for being perceived as pro-Communist or anti-Nationalist. Detention is a side-scrolling, atmospheric horror that plays on the paranoia of the time, as well as the religious and mythological elements of Taiwanese and Chinese culture.

 I first played the demo for this game for my YouTube channel in June of 2016, just before it received the official Steam Greenlight. I was drawn to Detention because the visual aesthetics and the premise reminded me of Silent Hill, but also because of the historical setting and the fact that the game developers are Taiwanese.

My major in college was in International Area Studies, with a focus on East Asia. I’ve studied the history of the region, but the opportunity to see the events of The White Terror from the Taiwanese perspective, through their cultural lens, was so exciting to me. It’s even a little rebellious, as while the Chinese Nationalist Party is no longer the one ruling political party in Taiwan, they still have a strong presence in the government. It’s very analogous to the McCarthyism from America’s Red Scare.

Do You Know the Wei?

Now, although The White Terror describes the time period and the overall backdrop behind the story, you don’t need a degree in the subject to understand what is going on. The situation is referenced in dialogue and notes found around the school throughout the game. However the real story focuses on the two young students trapped in their high school during a sudden typhoon – Ray and Wei. 

Wei wakes up during the storm after falling asleep in class to find that everyone else has seemingly left to take shelter without waking him, so Wei has to find his way home on his own. He finds Ray passed out in a chair on the school’s auditorium stage and wakes her. She is equally confused by their situation, and ready to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately, their way home is blocked by a broken bridge and the overflowing river that runs a bright red. 

Forced back to the school, Ray and Wei become separated as the whole aspect of the school changes in grotesque and horrifying ways. Monsters and spirits now stalk the halls, as do Ray’s own demons. Finding the way forward is all up to you.

Spine-Tingling Sensation

The graphics are all such high quality. They grip you with a horrifying sense of gritty realism, while maintaining a stylized air. Dark, shadowed tones contrasted with brilliant reds and warm yellow lighting can change the mood in an instant as you approach the next grotesque scene. Limiting your vision to what’s revealed by candlelight emphasized Ray’s sense of oppression and isolation. Combined with an audio scape that sends chills up your spine, raising hackles while tickling the senses with the occasional hint of a distant music box or distant laughter, the tension ratchets all the way to 11. And don’t get me started on the creaking and groaning of the Lingered, among other creatures you encounter. A panic starts the moment they’ve locked onto you. All you can do is run and pray you don’t misclick the door out.

The gameplay is a general point and click style, focused on exploring the environment and solving the presented puzzles. You cannot move forward without having gone through each available room at least once or twice, allowing the developers to lay new scares in wait. You might run past a prison cell, only to find it left open and empty on your way back out. Or you’ll pick up a note describing a spirit, and on closing your journal it pops up right behind you. There are no cheap and repetitive jump scares, just really compelling storytelling.

Detention also got a Netflix adaptation. The series is only eight episodes long; however the acting and production are really amazing. It reads more as a drama than a horror, though, so if you have a weak stomach but want to experience the story you might want to check it out.

Acts of Devotion

Devotion is very much Detention’s spiritual child. While you play Devotion from a first-person perspective in a fully rendered 3-D style, it retains the same atmosphere and art style that made Detention feel so unique. Even the Lingered make a reappearance in one of the most heart-stopping sequences of this title! The moment I heard that iconic labored breathing I knew exactly what had appeared behind me. Chills, meet spine.

Mind Your Memes

Perhaps known best for its controversy, Devotion, and by extension Red Candle Games, had a rocky start, to say the least. Steam took the game down from its store soon after its release in February 2019 after an easter egg, allegedly referencing Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, was found in the game. Really, it amounted to an easily missed talisman that referenced the “Xi Jinping is Winnie the Pooh” meme that was going around at the time of development. There was also a written phrase that sounds similar to “your mother is a moron” in Taiwanese.

Many Chinese people were upset with this. They thought it both an insult to their leader and that Red Candle Games was linking the Chinese Communist Party to the game’s cult narratively. Despite removing the offending image and apologizing over the misunderstanding, publishers Indievent and Winking Skywalker ended up cutting ties with Red Candle Games as a result of the controversy. It wasn’t until March of 2021 that Red Candle Games was able to re-release Devotion on its own digital store. 

The End is Never the End

The story in Devotion centers around a family in 1980’s Taiwan – a mother, a daughter, and the father. Du Feng Yu and his family live in a modest apartment, seemingly the perfect family. However, as you listen to your wife from the kitchen rot and decay seems to seep into the walls. When she asks about where your daughter is, your vision blurs at the edges until you seemingly pass out.

Very much like PT, the player character seems trapped within his own home. You endlessly circle the rooms and hallways as you interact with various notes and objects to explore events from Du Feng’s life. The developers did an excellent job of leading you from one scene to the next. Dramatic lighting and sound cues draw your attention seamlessly to the next objective, making the story really flow. I didn’t find Devotion as frightening as Detention, only because there’s just one section where your life feels truly endangered. However the jump scares and existential horror as you realize the depths of this family’s issues, and just what Du Feng Yu did, more than make up for that.

I will only briefly touch on the religious aspect of the game. It obviously comes with a number of spoilers I would like you to experience yourself. Suffice to say, though, that any survivor of religious abuse will find the themes in Devotion familiar. The family’s downfall is due, in part, to their involvement with a cult twisting Chinese folk religion. Where you could feel the touch of religious iconography and themes in Detention, Devotion depicts the dangers of religious obsession rather than political fanaticism.

Enter Nine Sols,

Red Candle Game’s newest title and greatest deviation from their established format. After a very successful crowdfunding campaign with over 8,900 backers, Nine Sols was published in May 2024. It is a hand-drawn Metroidvania like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Ori and the Blind Forest. The game has a “Taopunk” aesthetic, blending Taoist imagery and themes with dystopian cybernetic futurism.

In a world where humans are livestock and feline humanoids are treated as Gods; you play as Yi. You were formerly one of the Sols in charge of New Kunlun but clearly circumstances changed. After recovering from a near-death experience, Yi sets to carry out his vengeance on the other Sols who betrayed him. The game gradually reveals the nature of that betrayal through the narrative, and I won’t spoil it here. However, the challenge of the story is as thus: Will Yi make the ultimate sacrifice or carry on the legacy of those who he despised?

Where the Horror Lies

At first, I couldn’t really see the through line between Detention, Devotion, and Nine Sols. On appearances and first impressions, Nine Sols felt like it was developed by a completely different studio. It’s like an action flick when you were expecting a horror. However, as you peel back the layers and explore the environment, tendrils of that classic eerie Red Candle atmosphere. The agriculture wing of New Kunlun was one thing, but the horror imagery really ramps up when you meet the fifth boss, Madame Ethereal. Her story is just so tragic, but I think it was also my favorite section of the whole game.

The Taoist elements are also part of the cultural lens that pervades the worlds of all of Red Candle’s projects. For one, Yi’s fighting style is based in Tai Chi. This martial art developed through Taoist spiritualism that emphasizes balance, flow, and harmony with the natural rhythms of the world. Your greatest strengths in combat lie in your ability to block and counter, just as Tai Chi emphasizes redirecting an opponent’s momentum, and in talismans powered by your spiritual energy. The game repeatedly confronts Yi with or reminds him of the philosophies that grant him his strength. Often this happens either when learning new skills to progress or when reminiscing about his sister, Heng. 

Heng is Yi’s foil and counterpoint. She is deeply spiritual and connected to the flow of their world. Yi, however, grew up rejecting certain aspects of their culture in favor of science and development. Their conversations pit the aspects of “Taopunk” against each other, the same way Nine Sols does throughout its gameplay. The perfect balance of these philosophies may not have been found in the game, but I deeply enjoyed seeing Yi come to a sort of peace with the past he had discarded. The perspective isn’t one often seen in Western games, and one that Red Candle handled masterfully in this case.

Sekiro on Steroids

Putting aside the more manhua art style used in Nine Sols, the biggest difference between Nine Sols and Red Candle’s other titles is its sheer difficulty. 

Detention and Devotion are story and exploration-based games, easily completed within an evening if you’re focused. Naturally, being a combat-based Metroidvania massively expanded Nine Sols’ playtime. It took me 14 hours to complete the True Ending on Story Mode, which significantly lowers the combat difficulty. Compared to Standard, the default settings in Story Mode for PC and Console are 150% on your attack modifier and 25% on your injury multiplier. Each modifier can be increased up to 1000%. It doesn’t change the actual fight patterns, though, so you still have to be precise as hell. My Standard Mode playthrough is currently sitting at 30 hours, and I still can’t beat the Final Boss. I’ve spent around four hours on her fight alone!

The main reason for this is the precision you have to have when it comes to your blocks and counters. The gap between an enemy charging up an attack and responding appropriately can take a split second. If you’ve ever played Sekiro, you know exactly what I am talking about. A lot of Standard Mode involves dying enough to memorize the attack patterns and predicting them in the next round. 

Not for the Faint of Heart

I’m sure that the difficulty has been enough to make a lot of players quit out of frustration. Just going off of the global achievements on Steam, only half of all players have beaten Guomang, the second boss. This percentage drops to 20% of all players who have reached either of the game’s endings. And the difference between those who beat the second to last boss and those who actually beat the game? About 15%. 

It’s a shame, ‘cause I think Nine Sols might be one my favorite games of all time. I can definitely empathize, though. This game is the very definition of, “get good, scrub.” It is not forgiving, but the payoff is so worth it.

Final Thoughts

When I first played Detention, I really wanted to showcase the game and help the devs get their greenlight. I still feel that way now. Red Candle Games is a marvelous studio whose games are legitimate works of art. They started their studio with the express goal of creating the kind of games they wanted to see; games steeped in their own culture and history. I am so deeply grateful they did. Not only are they just grand experiences, but I feel as though I’ve learned a lot about Taiwan through them. 

It is impossible to tell what kind of project Red Candle Games is working on now, but I, for one, am waiting for it with baited breath.

Detention and Nine Sols are available on PC through Steam, and Nintendo Switch. Nine Sols is also out on Xbox Series X|S/Game Pass and PlayStation 4 & 5. Devotion remains purchasable only through Red Candle Games’ store.