A demo for Dark and Darker became a major hit on Steam during the Next Fest that took place earlier this year. Even though it was an alpha test and clearly not ready for release, tens of thousands of players embraced the game during its brief availability on Steam. But as its popularity grew, so did the intensity of Ironmace's dispute with Nexon, which accused the studio of building the game using concepts and assets stolen from one of its cancelled projects. That led to the demo's removal from Steam, forcing Ironmace to distribute its final pre-early access playtest build via Bittorrent, an effort that was surprisingly successful. The studio also finally fired back at Nexon in earnest in April, saying its allegations are "nothing more than anti-competitive bully tactics designed to put a small indie firm out of business Dark And Darker Gold ."
Dark and Darker early access release date announcement
Popular opinion seems very much on Ironmace's side but that doesn't change the reality on the ground, which is that it is facing some very serious allegations leveled by a major game publisher. That's a big problem, especially for a small studio, so it's understandable that Ironmace would have its attention focused on the dispute, rather than on meeting an arbitrary Dark and Darker release target. I've reached out to Ironmace for more information on the delay and a possible new release target, and will update if I receive a reply.
Dark and Darker studio raided by police following 'stolen' code allegations
A Yonhap News report (Google translated) says police in South Korea have searched the office of Dark and Darker developer Ironmace and seized materials related to the project. The raid in the city of Seongnam was reportedly connected to allegations that the game is being built using code and assets stolen from Nexon.
Nexon was reportedly working on a similar project, revealed in 2021 as P3, before pulling the plug on development later that year. Ironmace was founded shortly afterward, and includes former Nexon employees who apparently didn't part with the company on the best of terms: The Ironmace website describes the studio buy Darker Gold as "a merry band of veteran game developers disillusioned by the exploitative and greedy practices we once helped create."
