It’s been nearly five months since Taiwanese game studio Red Candle Games pulled its latest title, horror game Devotion, from sale. Amid controversy that it had included a disparaging remark about Chinese president Xi Jinping in Devotion, the studio apologized and removed the game from Steam in order to perform a “complete QA check” on all of the game’s artwork assets.

Devotion has not returned to Steam, and based on a new statement from the developer, it doesn’t sound like the game will reappear anytime soon, if at all.

Red Candle Games’ update on Devotion is deeply apologetic, both to its publishing partner for the controversy (which the studio calls “a malfunction of project management, not a deliberate act”) and to players who have not been able to purchase the game.

“We made a critical and unprofessional error during the game’s production,” Red Candle Games said in posts on Twitter and Facebook. “It saddens us that the focus of the game has shifted drastically since the erroneous art asset was found. A revision patch was implemented immediately as we have absolutely no intent to stage a publicity stunt.

“However, in the aftermath of the incident, some still possess different speculations about Devotion. As regretful as the incident was, we have to bear its full consequence. We hope for a second chance in the near future. A chance to prove that, both Red Candle and its partner simply wanted to create a great game and no one wished for such incident to occur.”

Red Candle offers a faint glimmer of hope that Devotion could return to digital stores, but only if “the public would be willing to view this game rationally and allow us the opportunity to rebuild trust with our players.”

The developer’s comment comes shortly after reports that Devotion publisher Indievent recently had its business license revoked by the Chinese government, a decision that reportedly was “100% because of Devotion” and the controversy that followed.

Red Candle’s full statement is below: