Dark and Darker removed from Steam as Nexon situation worsens

Steam action RPG game and Diablo-inspired dungeon crawler Dark and Darker has been removed from the platform following an alleged cease and desist letter from Japanese-South Korean publisher Nexon.

This comes in the wake of a series of back and forth allegations between the two companies. In summary, Nexon accused Ironmace, Dark and Darker’s developers, of stealing game code for a project entitled ‘P3,’ which is allegedly similar to the hit Steam dungeon crawler. Members of Ironmance were allegedly involved in the development of P3.

Ironmance was quick to deny the allegations, but according to Games Industry.biz was raided by Korean police in early March. On March 25, fans noticed that the game was no longer available on Steam (I have verified this, it isn’t), and a subsequent statement on the game’s dedicated Discord server explains why.

“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,” writes a developer called ‘Krapst78’. “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.”

Dark and Darker exploded on Steam in February following a free demo test, peaking at over 100,000 concurrent players per day. Described as “an unforgiving hardcore fantasy FPS dungeon PvPvE adventure,” you are challenged with diving deep into the bowels of an ancient citadel and retrieving treasure to sell to local merchant. Think Tomb Raider meets Diablo.

PCGamesN has reached out to Nexon for comment, and will update this page with any further details.

In the meantime, though, there are plenty of other great co-op games that you can try out, and the Diablo 4 beta is up and running if you fancy crawling through some dungeons.