Dark and Darker is a bit of a Schroedinger’s video game, isn’t it? Seemingly fleeting back and forth between a state of being available for sale and being outright delisted. Back in March, the multiplayer extraction game was delisted from the Epic Games Store, with developer Ironmace saying at the time that the “decision appears to be based on claims made by opposing parties in an ongoing legal dispute.”
Now, Epic appear to be sending out emails to those that have the game in their libraries informing them that the game will no longer be playable this year (I’ve received this email myself as I apparently added it to my library at some point despite not having played it).
“We removed Dark and Darker from sale on the Epic Games Store on March 5 in consideration of a court decision in Korea between Nexon and the game’s publisher, Ironmace,” Epic wrote in the email. “On November 1, 2025, we will be removing Dark and Darker from your library, at which point it will no longer be playable via the Epic Games Store.” Anyone that paid for the Legendary Status upgrade will be getting a refund, though those that bought Redstone shards won’t be. Both of these are no longer available for purchase as well.
The court decision Epic referenced is likely the one from February, which found that Ironmace didn’t infringe on Nexon’s copyright of project P3, a game that Nexon alleged was then turned into Dark and Darker using stolen code and assets. However, the court did also instruct Ironmace to pay Nexon 8.5 billion won (about $6.18 million) in damages.
Ironically, at this point in time it doesn’t seem like the game is being booted off of Steam, despite previously facing this in 2023. It’s a messy situation, one that I would guess isn’t quite done yet.
