Just before the upcoming dungeon crawler Dark and Darker was slated to launch a playtest, its team was served a cease and desist letter and a DMCA takedown in March. Now, development team Ironmace is going ahead with another playtest as originally scheduled, albeit via an interesting method.
Today, Ironmace began encouraging people to participate in Dark and Darker’s playtest through torrents made available in a message in the game’s Discord server. The playtest will be available until April 19.
“Rest assured that we are working around the clock to safeguard the continuance of Dark and Darker,” the team’s Discord message, which was reposted on Reddit, reads. “Unfortunately, due to the complexities of our situation, especially across international lines, it is taking time to resolve the Steam situation. In order for us to keep our promise to our fans we’ve had to go old school this time.”
Dark and Darker’s ongoing legal problems
The Dark and Darker legal scandal began in March after Korean officials searched Ironmace’s offices for stolen code and assets from Nexon, where around half of Ironmace’s 20-person team previously worked. Ironmace later said that “nothing was found” in this search, but the game was still delisted from Steam and Ironmace remains in a legal battle with Nexon.
Most recently, an Ironmace developer posted a GoFundMe to help the team with legal fees, which repoortedly raised $46,000 in less than an hour before it was removed.
Dark and Darker might have a rocky future, but fans are finding ways to ensure that the game is eventually made available in some form — one fan is even reconstructing the game in Fortnite.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
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