Dark and Darker was a surprise indie hit when it launched in Early Access week last winter as its unique gameplay formula mixing elements of Dungeons and Dragons and Escape from Tarkov quickly became popular among players. However, even though the game had another successful playtest last month, a new cease and desist might put a hold on any new betas or further development for the time being.
In a recent post to the game’s official Discord server, Dark and Darker developer IRONMACE announced that it has received a cease and desist letter from South Korean developer Nexon. Previously it was revealed that Nexon was suing them, claiming that previous employees of IRONMACE were working on a game for them and that stolen assets showed up in Dark and Darker.
In the statement, one of the users marked as a developer in Discord commented that the company had received a cease and desist letter from Nexon “based on distorted claims.” The notice doesn’t say more than that because IRONMACE is trying not to jeopardize any chance it has at moving forward with development.
This announcement ends with a promise that the developer is doing everything possible to ensure that fans can play the game as soon as possible.
The most recent legal action before the cease and desist was a raid on the IRONMACE offices by the Korean police. According to GameIndustry.biz, IRONMACE claims that the police could not find what they were looking for during the raid, but there is no official confirmation of this.
Update March 26, 2:30pm CT: It seems that Steam has since removed the game from the platform. The CEO of IRONMACE posted in the game’s Discord a lengthy statement about this development and their response to the charges put forward by Nexon. The update post goes through an itemized list of each accusation, attempting to debunk each one.
It’s a comprehensive list, with IRONMACE even using ChatGPT to try to prove that its game is generic enough that it doesn’t use anything that came from Nexon.
