Dark and Darker dev's legal woes are over - for now, at least

Dark and Darker class guide — (Image credit: IRONMACE)

A lawsuit against Dark and Darker's developer has been dismissed, but only on the grounds that it should be heard in a different country.

Yesterday, on August 18, Dark and Darker developer Ironmace announced that a United States District Court had dismissed Nexon's lawsuit against the studio and its co-founders, Terence Park and Ju-Hyun Choi. The court sided with Ironmace as the defendants, and ruled that South Korea would be a more "appropriate" venue for the lawsuit to be heard.

"We have long maintained that the US lawsuit was a heavy-handed attempt by a much larger game company to overpower its smaller competitor," a statement from Ironmace reads. "We are gratified that the Court recognized Nexon's litigation tactics for what they were, noting that it was 'suspicious of Nexon’s true motives in filing this action in the United States in the first place.' Fortunately, Nexon’s bullying approach to litigation did not succeed."

"We are pleased that Ironmace has been able to bring Dark and Darker to a global audience through its early access release on August 7, and are hopeful that, with this ruling, Dark and Darker will be able to return to US-based gaming platforms soon," Ironmace concludes. Dark and Darker is in early access right now, but it's only available on two smaller storefronts, instead of a major storefront like Steam.

Given the ruling of the court, it could well be the case that Nexon chooses to take its lawsuit to Korea, where developer Ironmace is based. There's no guarantee that the publisher opts to do this right now, as we've not heard any comment from Nexon since the US court's ruling yesterday.

Ironmace was originally sued by Nexon, its publisher, for copyright infringement earlier this year in April, alleging the studio stole assets from an in-development game called P3, right before Park and Choi left to found Ironmace. The Dark and Darker developer claimed that the lawsuit was nothing more than "anti-competitive bully tactics" from Nexon, and petitioned Valve to reinstate Dark and Darker on Steam.

You can check out our upcoming PC games guide for a look ahead at all the games coming to Steam later this year.

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.