Up-and-coming fantasy extraction game Dark and Darker (opens in new tab) Removed from Steam due to a suspension and DMCA complaint by publisher Nexon. This is a clear escalation of an existing dispute between Nexon and Dark and Darker developer Ironmace over the game’s development assets. On March 24th and 25th, assets and materials were removed from Dark and Darker’s Steam page overnight, followed by a shutdown of Co-op and his PvP servers, culminating in the removal of the game from Steam’s store. reached.
This follows a search earlier this month (opens in new tab) Ironmace’s office where the police seized materials related to the game project. At the time, Ironmace said that “no stolen assets or code was ever used in the creation of the game” and that players should not be alarmed as “nothing was found”. . Apparently, Japanese-Korean game publishing giant Nexon is against it, but legal details have yet to be revealed.
In a statement posted on the Dark and Darker Discord server, a Nexon representative said, “We recently received a cease and desist order and a DMCA takedown notice from Nexon regarding Dark and Darker based on distorted claims. I am currently working on a legal matter and I ask the team to resolve this matter in the best possible way. We must pay attention to our statements so as not to jeopardize the position of .
This latest escalation is part of an ongoing legal dispute between Nexon and Ironmace, and a personal legal dispute between employees of Nexon and Ironmace. An Iron Mace employee previously worked at Nexon on a project he called P3, which was canceled in 2021. Nexon claims similarities to Dark and Darker, seemingly implying that Iron Mace created the game using stolen assets and code.
Dark and Darker is an extractive shooter, but it’s also a first-person dungeon crawling fantasy game.What our Lauren Morton said (opens in new tab) “It proves that an extraction shooter doesn’t have to be a shooter at all.” The open alpha over the past few months has been so popular that it ranked among the 100 most-played games on Steam over the weekend. Dark and Darker was scheduled for another public playtest from April 14th, 2023 to he’s April 19th.
We will continue to monitor this situation as it develops. We have reached out to both Nexon and Ironmace for comment and will update when we hear back.
