The South Korean police appears to have raided the studio working on Dark and Darker, a medieval extraction-based dungeon crawler inspired by the likes of Escape from Tarkov. The game dev studio in question, Ironmace, was accused of stealing code from the publisher it previously worked with, Nexon. Though these allegations were denied, it doesn't seem the story is over yet.Even though the Dark and Darker devs denied stealing code from Nexon, it didn't seem like Ironmace's former publisher would stop with its allegations against the studio. The issue comes from the fact that the production of Dark and Darker happened after Nexon pulled the plug on a similar project under its own umbrella, P3, which was being made by current Ironmace staff. Following the announcement of Dark and Darker, Nexon accused Ironmace of having stolen code from P3 for this new, standalone project. South Korean website Yonhap News reported that Nexon filed a legal complaint about the matter of stolen game code back in 2021 and that the agencies in charge requested a "supplementary investigation" of the matter in late 2022. This, presumably, is what led the South Korean police to search Ironmace's offices. While the developer claims that nothing was found and that there will be no additional delays in the game's development, Yonhap reports that the police did indeed confiscate materials during the raid.
Nexon is a massive investment company that has access to immense financial and legal resources. Since Ironmace staff doesn't seem to have parted ways with Nexon on particularly good terms, only to proceed with the production of a niche title that's reportedly very similar to the publisher's own canceled project, it's not particularly surprising that there'd be accusations of some sort. Whether anything comes of this, of course, will depend on whether the materials confiscated by the police lead to anything concrete.
In the interim, the virally popular Dark and Darker will continue its development unless Nexon can provide proof that Ironmace really did steal proprietary code. It's possible that the whole situation would've blown over had the game not become so popular in such a short span of time, trapping the devs between a rock and a hard place with their former publisher.
Tarkov fans may enjoy Dark and Darker, in particular, as that's the specific niche that Ironmace is targeting with this release. It is, at its core, an extraction shooter without any guns, which makes it quite the novelty in the current gaming marketplace. Even if the game ends up getting held up due to Nexon's efforts, odds are good that a different developer will take up the concept in the future now that Ironmace has shown just how popular the premise can be.
Dark and Darker is currently in development for PC.
Source: Yonhap News (via PC Gamer)