According to a report by Yonhap News (open in new tab) (Google Translate (open in new tab)), South Korean police searched the offices of Ironmace, the developer of "Dark and Darker" (open in new tab), and seized materials related to the project. The raid in Seongnam is reportedly related to allegations that the game is being made using code and assets stolen from Nexon.

Nexon was working on a similar project, which was released as "P3" in 2021, but reportedly stopped development later that year. Ironmace was founded shortly thereafter and includes former Nexon employees: the Ironmace website (opens in new tab) describes the studio as "a merry band of veteran game developers disillusioned by the exploitative and greedy ways they once created."

Nexon reportedly filed a complaint regarding the case with the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency in August 2021. According to Yonhap, the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency forwarded the matter to the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Public Prosecutors Office in August 2022, and the branch requested "additional investigation" in December.

Ironmace denied the allegations in February (open in new tab) and said "no stolen assets or code were used at all to create our game." He also described a lawsuit filed by Nexon against at least one former employee who moved to Ironmace as "another personal matter."

In a message posted on the Dark and Darker Discord (opens in new tab), an Ironmace employee who used the name Graysun acknowledged that there had been a police investigation, but said "nothing was found." They also encouraged their followers to "not pay too much attention to what you hear about Nexon."

"Most of what you see on the Internet is not accurate," Graysun wrote.

"There is no delay in development, and there is nothing to worry about.

Iron Mace conveyed the same message to a wider audience via Twitter:

Dark and Darker is a "relentless hardcore fantasy FPS dungeon PvPvE adventure," and was a big hit at Steam Next Fest in February It made headlines and made the top 10 most played games on Steam (opens in new tab). The studio recently announced that it has decided to conduct one more playtest session before its planned launch into Early Access (opens in new tab): the fifth and possibly last test session will take place on Steam from April 14 to 19.

We have contacted Ironmace for more information on the search and seizure of Dark and Darker and will update if we hear back.