Last month, we covered what appeared to be the messy middle of the ongoing legal saga between Nexon and Ironmace over the Dark and Darker franchise. Back in 2023, Nexon accused Ironmace, which was headed by former Nexon devs on Project P3, of ripping off P3. The ensuring legal drama saw Dark and Darker yoinked off Steam as police raided Ironmace, and a copyright infringement lawsuit blossomed. In February, the Seoul district court found that Ironmace hadn’t infringed on Nexon’s copyright but was still liable for violating Nexon’s trade secrets, and Ironmace was ordered to pay Nexon 8.5B KRW (around $6M US).
Well, now it appears there’s more punishment in store than just fines, as yesterday Ironmace admitted that Epic Games has booted Dark and Darker following the verdict.
“Epic Games has decided to delist Dark and Darker from the Epic Games Store,” the studio says. “The decision appears to be based on claims made by opposing parties in an ongoing legal dispute. We are currently working to understand the exact reasoning behind this removal.” The company also says it’s “working on alternative solutions,” which is believable since that’s exactly what it did when it was first booted off Steam and still managed to launch early access from its own website. The Steam version of the game is still up as we type this.
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The news comes even as the Krafton-published Dark and Darker Mobile has launched its pre-season 2 patch. “The update will introduce overall class adjustments, new unique-grade equipment, main menu customization options, and UI feature improvements. These additions are designed to enhance your gameplay experience and make your adventures even more enjoyable,” Krafton writes.
Incidentally, Nexon did release a statement about the court order this morning; among other things, it summarizes the trade secrets portion of the case, from its winning point-of-view, of course.
“The court recognized that the defendants used or disclosed Nexon’s trade secrets with wrongful intent and determined that they leveraged P3’s core planning and key development information to create Dark and Darker. The court found that Ironmace’s rapid release of Dark and Darker, based on information containing P3 trade secrets, was a key piece of evidence. The court determined that the game’s sales were largely driven by its early market entry, achieved by significantly shortening the development period. Additionally, the absence of a documented planning phase for Dark and Darker in its early development, and the fact that certain P3 assets (e.g., torches, door systems) were purchased from the Unreal Asset Store, modified in terms of color temperature, saturation, brightness, and scaling, and then identically implemented in Dark and Darker, further supported the court’s decision.”
The drama continues, in other words.
