Just before the upcoming Dark and Darker dungeon crawler released a playtest, his team was delivered a cease and desist letter and a DMCA takedown in March. Now the Ironmace development team continues with another play test as originally scheduledalbeit through an interesting method.
Today, Ironmace began encouraging people to participate in the Dark and Darker playtest via torrents available in a post on the game's Discord server. The play test will be available until April 19.
"Rest assured we are working around the clock to safeguard the sequel to Dark and Darker," the team's Discord message, reposted on Reddit, read. "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 had to go old school this time around."
Dark and Darker announced on Discord that their public test will continue.
Dark and Darker's ongoing legal troubles
The Dark and Darker legal scandal began in March after Korean officials searched Ironmace's offices for stolen Nexon codes and assets, where about half of Ironmace's 20-person team previously worked. Ironmace later said that "nothing was found" in this search, but the game was still removed from Steam and Ironmace remains in a legal battle with Nexon.
More recently, an Ironmace developer posted a GoFundMe to help the team with legal fees, which reportedly raised $46,000 in less than an hour before they were withdrawn.
Dark and Darker may have a rocky future, but fans are finding ways to ensure the game is finally available in some form: one fan is even rebuilding the game into Fortnite.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, she has contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
