Dark and Darker, a fantasy take on the hardcore PvPvE extraction game genre originally made popular by Escape from Tarkov, was making waves on Steam. Ahead of its launch, the Korean developers at IRONMACE shared a public demo that peaked at 275K concurrent players two months ago, while another 175K users followed the Steam page to stay updated on its progress to release.
However, two days ago, the game was suddenly removed from Steam. It became quickly apparent that the cause was no glitch but something much more serious.
IRONMACE revealed to have received a DMCA takedown issued by NEXON on top of a cease and desist letter from the same company. IRONMACE has since shared the DMCA takedown notice in its entirety; you can find it here.
NEXON alleges that Dark and Darker was developed using 'trade secrets' and 'copyrighted information' stolen from the company's P3 Project, which took off in August 2020. The company also alleges that select key developers who were working on P3 misappropriated the aforementioned trade secrets and copyrighted information to create Dark and Darker after leaving NEXON and founding IRONMACE. According to NEXON, IRONMACE couldn't have made Dark and Darker so quickly without said misappropriations. They also go on to state that there are too many similarities between P3 at IRONMACE's game for it to be a mere coincidence.
On the other hand, IRONMACE revealed that both the main accused person and the studio as a whole had already been subject to multiple search warrants that did not contribute to substantiating these claims. Additionally, they add that none of the content, setting, or story present in either game is truly original, having been featured one way or another in multiple videogames and pen and paper games. To demonstrate this point, IRONMACE petitioned ChatGPT for a similar game concept and received a description that's incredibly similar to the game itself.
The developers from IRONMACE conclude their statement by noting that NEXON could only make circumstantial claims as there is no evidence to be found. They also said to be open to comparing the source code, assets, and game design documentation between the two game projects with the police to swiftly resolve the matter.
We'll keep an eye on the development of this litigation. Stay tuned.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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