Dark and Darker – Title disappears from Steam after cease and desist request

After the recent news of a police search at the premises of the developer Ironmace made the rounds, there is now more unpleasant news for the fans of Dark and Darker.
The title has disappeared from Steam as of tonight.

Dark and Darker disappears from Steam

Sometime last night, fans of Dark and Darker made the discovery that a number of screenshots and videos were gradually disappearing from Dark and Darker’s Steam page. A short time later, the page was no longer accessible at all and Dark and Darker could no longer be found.
A few hours later, the developers gave an update on the game’s official Discord about the current situation:

To all our fans, we have recently been served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown by Nexon regarding Dark and Darker based on distorted claims. We are currently working with our legal team to remedy this issue in the best manner possible. Due to the sensitive legal nature of this issue we must be careful with our statements so as to not jeopardize our position. We ask for your understanding as we work to get the game back up as quickly as possible. Please know that we will do all that is possible for our fans. Thanks!

According to this, it is not about the preparations for the actually planned next playtest, as some fans assumed, but the events are actually related to the legal disputes.

Short retrospect

For those not in the know, here’s a quick review of what it’s all about:

Korean developer and publisher Nexon was working on a game called “Project P3” some time ago. After the game was delayed for unexplained reasons, some developers from the responsible team then quit Nexon.
These members of the former development team then got together under the name Ironmace Games and have been working on Dark and Darker ever since.

The game is a kind of extraction game from the first-person perspective that mixes the game principle with sword and shield, magic and various monsters.

The problem: Nexon accuses Ironmace of stealing the general idea as well as assets and other content from Project P3 and passing it off as their own. In fact, there are supposed to be some parallels between the games, but it is unclear how much both projects resemble each other.

As a result of these disputes, there was both a semi-public exchange of blows – in which Ironmace Games considers itself to be in the right – and the aforementioned search.

Now, of course, the question remains as to what will happen next with Dark and Darker. Even in the early playtest phase, the surprise hit had made a vertical jump in the Steam charts and since then, many players have been eagerly waiting for the next playtest, which was actually announced for April.

However, the latest events seem to indicate that developer Ironmace Games will have their hands full with dealing with the industry giant Nexon for the time being.

As soon as there is news about the situation, you will of course find it here with us!