Small indie games are listed on Steam for Deom or beta versions to accumulate popularity before releasing official versions, which has been a common tool for developers in these years. At the beginning of the year, the hardcore game "Dark and Darker" (also known as "Darkest Hour"), known as "Dungeon Chicken" and "Medieval Tarkov", set off a gameplay boom.
Although it is a new IP, the development company Ironmace from South Korea is also unknown, but "Dark and Darker" has been recognized by many players with its excellent gameplay mechanism and stimulating PVPVE elements. Chu He, Yinzi, Yang Shu and other host area bigwigs are quite obsessed with this game. At its peak, Steam players reached 100,000 at one point.
With demos alone being so popular, the future of Dark and Darker seems bright. After this demo, Ironmace can't wait to plan its fifth test in mid-April. However, the eagerly awaited players did not wait for the news of the game's beta test. On the contrary, the Steam store officially removed this game a few days ago.
Domestic players don't know much about the reason, but as early as February, there was a discussion about "Dark and Darker" on the Korean Internet forum. This time the game was removed from Steam on the grounds that another South Korean game company, Nexon, launched accusations of plagiarism against Ironmace.
According to Korean reports, most of the employees of Ironmace, the development team of "Dark and Darker", actually worked for Nexon around 2020 and were responsible for the development of a product called "Project P3". They later left Nexon for a number of reasons, formed Ironmace and launched Dark and Darker under a new identity.
In early March, South Korean police searched Ironmace's office location, and Nexon, based on the content presented by Dark and Darker, believed that Ironmace used Project P3 code and resources for the development of the game, and filed a charge of "intentional infringement of intellectual property rights", which eventually led to the removal of the game from Steam.
Since the incident, Ironmace has been complaining online. Indicates that Dark and Darker is a redeveloped game with material from the Unreal Store. (Sources of purchase assets were also released) and players were emphasized that the April playtest will proceed as scheduled.
I don't know where their confidence comes from, but it somewhat soothes players' expectations. At this stage, although Dark and Darker has similarities to Project P3 in terms of concept, genre and plot, it is not enough to be conclusive evidence.
In addition, Ironmace began to refute Nexon's allegations. This makes the situation more confusing to others.
With less than a month to go before Dark and Darker's original beta date, it won't be easy for Ironmace to start testing on time. It's hard to predict what the outcome will be.
So what do you think about this?