Dark and Darker: The Return of the First-Person Extraction Dungeon Crawler Disappeared from Steam due to Lawsuit

Dark and Darker, the first-person extraction dungeon crawler that disappeared from Steam due to a lawsuit, is back. The game is available outside of Steam on two platforms for around 32 euros. The lawsuit is still ongoing.

The game is available for purchase on its official website and on Chaf Games, an online game store from South Korea. Both copies of the game are the same and players can play with each other regardless of which store the game came from. In an email to PC Gamer developer Ironmace reports that he wants the game back on Steam ‘as soon as possible’.

Dark and Darker costs 32 euros, but for 46 euros players have the Founder’s Edition. It offers some cosmetic extras and these players get early access to new dungeons. This is an early access version, so the game is not finished yet.

Ironmace points out in a blog post that ingame voice chat is not yet present due to a legal issue, but this is most likely not the aforementioned lawsuit. The company brings this as a formality and expresses confidence that this will soon be in place. Furthermore, players should expect ‘growing pains’ and ‘many important features’ are not yet in the game. They should be added ‘in the coming months’.

The game already has an ingame shop. Cosmetic items are currently being sold there and in-game it is underlined that ‘no advantage in competition’ can be gained with it. Ironmace says with the store it wants to be “realistic about running an online game, but without turning to random loot boxes and fomo items.”

Former employees of the South Korean game publisher Nexon, among others, work at the South Korean Ironmace. According to Nexon, developers behind Dark and Darker violated their non-competition clause by using Nexon’s intellectual property in this game. The game was previously removed from Steam at the request of Nexon and a lawsuit between the two parties is still pending. Dark and Darker did its earlier playtests on Steam, but the later playtests, dating from after they had to go off Steam, were distributed via bittorrent.

Dark and Darker is a first-person extraction dungeon crawler. Players enter a dungeon alone or as a team, where a battleroyale-style circle becomes progressively smaller. Players must battle computer-controlled enemies, collect loot, and escape the dungeon via teleporters. Players they encounter can team up or fight, but when teamed up, the alliance can collapse at any moment; only one person can escape through a teleporter. The game has a fantasy theme and the different classes are fighter, barbarian, rogue, ranger, wizard and cleric.

2023-08-08 09:53:26
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