Today Ironmace, the South Korean developer behind the PvPvE FPS game Dark and Darker, launched the Epic Game Store page for the game.
While the page doesn't yet have the game for sale, its launch is certainly interesting considering the legal battle against publisher Nexon that caused the removal of the game from Steam.
For now, the availability is just marked as "coming soon," but Ironmace mentioned on its Discord server that this is due to "increased confidence" in the quality of the game, leading the developer to "start preparations on introducing Dark and Darker to a wider audience."
Below you can read the full statement directly from Ironmace CEO Terence Park, who describes the move as a "big preparatory step" in delivering a polished product and promises to work with various partners to give fans the best options.
Hi @everyone, with increased confidence in the quality of our game, we have started preparations on introducing Dark and Darker to a wider audience. As a first step, we are happy to announce the launch of the Dark and Darker store page on the Epic Games Store at https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/dark-and-darker-qa-c1e629.
This is a big preparatory step for us in our journey to deliver a polished product to our fans. If you have an Epic account, we encourage you to show your enthusiasm and wishlist the game. We will continue working with various partners to give our fans the best options and properly grow the community to foster a long and healthy game. Thanks to everyone for all your love and support!
This follows the preliminary ruling within the legal battle against Nexon which basically ended in a draw. At the moment, we don't know whether further news on the legal side persuaded Ironmace that it was safe to list the game on a new storefront.
Ironmace's team includes a number of developers who used to work at Nexon, and the massive publisher accused them of having used its intellectual property to make Dark and Darker.
While legal proceedings are ongoing on multiple fronts, the game received an official age rating in South Korea at the beginning of the month.
This and the decision against a preliminary injunction mentioned above seem to be paving a path toward a wider release of the game, which has been available in early access on the developer's website and on the Chafgames platform since the summer of 2023.
We'll have to wait and see whether Ironmace will manage to bring the game back to Steam as well.
