The story surrounding the popular multiplayer fantasy dungeon crawler Dark and Darker just keeps getting crazier. Despite their current ongoing lawsuit with Nexon, Ironmace plans on releasing Dark and Darker in Early Access today. For now, Ironmace has partnered with subscription-based gaming platform Chaf Games. A purchase button is currently available on the Dark and Darker store page on Chaf Games but does not appear to be working at this time.[Update: Looks like it is officially available now, at this link.]
After a very popular beta period earlier this year, South Korean developer Ironmace was met with a lawsuit from Nexon claiming Dark and Darker had many similarities to its game in development titled P3.
Furthermore, Nexon alleged that a former employee named Mr. Choi leaked P3 assets on an external server to Ironmace. According to their claims, Mr. Choi was a project team leader for P3 before he was fired in August 2021. Nexon also argues that Mr. Choi convinced other teammates on the P3 project to follow him in joining Ironmace and using P3 assets to develop Dark and Darker.
Throughout the entire lawsuit, Ironmace has claimed its innocence. According to the developers, Dark and Darker uses Unreal Engine assets and handmade code, not stolen P3 assets. Furthermore, Ironmace claims Nexon is trying to copyright a game genre, which is not possible.
Ironmace still wants to bring Dark and Darker to Steam
Back in March, police reportedly raided Ironmace’s offices in Seongnam searching for evidence of Nexon’s allegations. Later that month Nexon issued a cease and desist notice to Ironmace in regards to the development of Dark and Darker. A couple of days later the title was delisted completely from Steam due to a DMCA notice filed by Nexon.
Despite a goal to release today on Chaf Games, Ironmace still plans to return Dark and Darker to Steam as soon as possible. “We cannot ignore the largest PC Storefront in the world,” Ironmace CEO Terence Park told PCGamer.
Dark and Darker will release in Early Access later today for PC.
