Despite the full Dark and Darker release date being a mystery with the game taken off Steam, the RPG game is still amassing a player base during Dark and Darker playtest five, even if developer Ironmace doesn’t think it has met the standards the team would like.
Ongoing Dark and Darker playtest security issues and a court battle plague Ironmace, and the studio has issued a statement on the quality of the current playtest while confirming when it will end.
“We want to apologize for all the bugs, instability, and hurdles that you had to endure during this playtest,” Ironmace writes on the Dark and Darker Discord. “The quality did not meet our standards and we will focus on improving the game for our fans in the future. Unfortunately, there won’t be an extension of this playtest and it will end on 20 April 2023. As always, we will share the data from this playtest shortly.
“As for the company, we will do everything possible to get the game to our fans as soon as possible and update you as much as we can. Thank you once again for your tremendous support and we’ll see you in the dungeons!”
Following this update on the Dark and Darker playtests, Ironmace added that it is “currently under attack involving logins,” which comes as a Dark and Darker DDoS attack hit the game as well. Ironmace has been attempting to keep the servers stable since these attacks began, but it looks like this current playtest will end without an extension among the ongoing issues.
DDoS attacks aren’t the only problem Ironmace is facing, as the Dark and Darker dev has now been sued by Nexon over alleged copyright infringement. According to Nexon, the Ironmace developers that were previously at the company have used assets and materials from their time there in Dark and Darker, with Ironmace denying any and all wrongdoing.
This follows Dark and Darker being removed from Steam, despite the dungeon-crawling RPG proving to be incredibly popular. The game was originally meant to release during Q4 of this year, but that seems more and more unlikely with the problems faced by Ironmace.
While you wait to see what happens with Dark and Darker, our breakdown of great fantasy games is sure to help you find a similar experience. Alternatively, you can browse the biggest upcoming PC games to see what else the year has to offer.