Dark and Darker's next battle is with its own cheaters

Dark and Darker developer Ironmace is cracking down on the cheaters currently plaguing the RPG's early access release.

In a statement posted to the game's Discord community, Ironmace's "Graysun" said that the team was "fighting a difficult fight against cheaters" and that addressing hacking was "a serious priority".

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"Right now, we are fighting a difficult fight against cheaters as we gather information with Ironshield to deal with this situation," Graysun wrote.

"The fight against cheating is a serious priority for us, and to further support our community, we will offer a Discord account you can directly message with your evidence of cheating for the next 30 days."

Players are encouraged to message the Discord account "Ironshield Support" with video evidence of cheating, as well as "the hacker's in-game name included". Screenshots alone are not sufficient, apparently.

There's no word on what will happen to cheaters or even what happens once the 30 days are up, but it should be good news nonetheless to players who've encountered the frustration of in-game cheating firsthand (thanks, PCGN).

Ironmace is also currently involved in a different battle, although this one is a fight about copyright. As Victoria explained for us at the time, back in August 2021, a former Nexon employee was allegedly reported for leaking company data and assets while they were working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. This employee - known as Leader A - was heading up development of a project dubbed "P3". However, after allegedly being caught leaking "thousands" of the project's file, Leader A was fired from Nexon.

Since then, Ironmace was served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown by Nexon, something the developer said is "based on distorted claims". As a result, Dark and Darker was removed from Steam. It then used ChatGPT to try and prove it hasn't infringed any copyright claims.

Now, however, Dark and Darker is back online, albeit in early access, with Ironmace having opted to create its own launcher, known as Blacksmith, and sell the game directly from its own website and via digital storefront Chaf Games.