Ironmace has been having a tough couple of months after it was accused of stealing assets from a game that was cancelled at Nexon. The studio is reportedly made up of former Nexon employees who were fired for leaking code and breaking confidentiality agreements. According to reports, they allegedly stole assets from the shelved game and went ahead and developed it as a new game at a new studio. Of course, the devs denied any such allegations. However, Ironmace has now taken a major hit, as Dark and Darker has been delisted from Steam.
"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," posted the devs to the game's Discord server, as spotted by LongJonSiIver on Reddit. "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. Thanks!"
While Dark and Darker can still be seen on SteamDB, it has been completely removed from Steam – searching for it will avail no results. It's safe to assume that the game won't make it back onto Steam until this issue is resolved. However, if the allegations are true, it seems unlikely that Ironmace will remain active, let alone be allowed to put the game back on Steam.
"ABSOLUTELY NO stolen assets or code were used to make our game," claimed Ironmace CEO Park Terence Seung-ha on the Discord server, when the allegations first surfaced. "Our code was built from scratch," Seung-ha wrote. "Most of our assets are purchased from the Unreal marketplace. All other assets and all game designs docs were created inhouse. This has already been audited by an outside agency. As far as we know you cannot copyright a game genre."