Taiwanese horror game Devotion has been pulled in mainland China after drawing the ire of gamers who found a hidden insult to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Key points: A poster in the game appeared to insult Xi Jinping's mother and describe him as Winnie the Pooh

A poster in the game appeared to insult Xi Jinping's mother and describe him as Winnie the Pooh Chinese censors have scrubbed nearly all references to the game on Weibo

Chinese censors have scrubbed nearly all references to the game on Weibo The developer said it was a rogue individual who planted the hidden insult

Developer Red Candle Games earlier this month released the first-person atmospheric horror game, which takes players though an abandoned 1980s apartment complex in Taiwan.

The game quickly went viral on Chinese social media platform Weibo, sparking discussions around a particular "Easter egg" — a term referring to hidden jokes or secrets concealed throughout games that are only noticeable to people who are paying close attention.

Some of the Easter eggs in Devotion appeared to be political, including a yellow poster displaying four characters on the side of a talisman which read "your mother is a moron" in Hakka — a Chinese dialect — and a red seal in the middle containing the words "Xi Jinping" and "Winne the Pooh" in an ancient style of writing.

The Chinese President is often compared to the honey-loving bear, and memes comparing the two have been widely censored on Chinese social media.

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In another part of the game, players also reportedly spotted an old newspaper segment with what is believed to be a blurred picture of a younger Mr Xi next to a headline reading: "Baozi sentenced to at least three years or death."

Baozi — which translates into "steamed bun" in Chinese — is another controversial nickname referring to Mr Xi, who reportedly enjoys eating steamed buns.

Adding to the controversy was the fact the game was made on the self-ruling island of Taiwan, which often has tensions with mainland China over the intricacies of the One China Policy.

After discovering the Easter eggs, users reportedly left a number of negative reviews for Devotion on the online game store Steam, eventually forcing the developer to apologise.

According to What's On Weibo, a news platform reporting social trends in China, the hashtag #Devotion racked up more than 120 million views on Weibo.

'This is not the viewpoint of Red Candle Games'

Devotion is a first-person atmospheric horror game. ( Red Candle Games/Devotion )

Since the blow-up, Chinese censors have scrubbed all references to the game on Weibo. Searches for Devotion and Red Candle Games, the Taiwanese developer, in Chinese are turning up almost no results.

Red Candle issued an apology on Facebook on February 23 and confirmed the game had been removed from Steam China.

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The statement, written in Chinese, said the references to "Xi Jinping" within the game were based on the decision of an individual rather than the team.

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"The other Red Candle team members were unaware of the incident as everyone was busy with their duties during the project," the statement said.

"We didn't [notice] this incident until players reported it on February 21, so we urgently changed the art material when we found it.

"This is not the viewpoint of Red Candle Games, nor is it the original intention of Devotion."

While the game was still available for international users after the Chinese version was initially pulled, Red Candle Games announced on Facebook on Tuesday it was pulling Devotion off the Steam store.

The developers said they needed to complete another quality assurance check "due to technical issues that caused unexpected crashes, among other reasons".

"At the same time we'd like to take this opportunity to ease the heightened pressure in our community [that] resulted from our previous art material incident," the post said.

"Our team would also review our game material once again, making sure no other unintended materials was inserted in.