It's far the fashionable escalation in a prison struggle amongst indie developer Ironmace and Nexon over the origins of Dark and Darker. Nexon claims that Dark and Darker makes use of stolen code and assets from a comparable-searching Nexon task called P3 that emerge as sooner or later scrapped, a task many participants of Ironmace formerly labored on. Ironmace denies those accusations and has insisted that Dark and Darker became constructed from the floor up Dark And Darker Gold .

Nexon in its takedown notice cites that Ironmace is making "unauthorized use of Nexon's trade secrets and techniques and techniques and copyrighted fabric," and that based totally on its non-public research, is the usage of "supply codes, artwork property, build documents, and other organisation highbrow assets." the awareness additionally takes motive at a former Nexon worker and the former crew lead for undertaking P3, who now works for Ironmace. Nexon confirms that the employee in query changed into "disciplined and terminated" for storing code and property associated with P3 on a non-public server in July 2021, and turned into later sued via Nexon over the problem. That lawsuit stays ongoing.

In line with Nexon, the worker in query recruited various P3 team members to go away Nexon and create a similar game, which changed into Dark and Darker. In keeping with Nexon, 10 out of the 23 employees working on P3 left Nexon and are believed to be now jogging at Ironmace. Ironmace founder Terence Park became aware about the terminated employee's movements, according to Nexon, and consequently benefited from the misappropriation of Nexon trade secrets and strategies.

Nexon states that "it's miles impossible for Ironmace to have advanced Dark and Darker in the type of quick time body without using Nexon's trade secrets and techniques and private facts," and states that the similarities between the two video video games "are so placing that they can't be moderately defined via independent improvement." this is partially because Nexon claims that P3 changed into in no way "disclosed to a third party," and that previous to Dark and Darker, no exceptional activity had the equal "idea, fashion, and plot as the P3 undertaking cheapest Dark And Darker Gold ."