·The latest Dark and Darkest playtest is now over, and while Ironmace earned kudos for making it happen despite the obstacles, the test itself did not go especially smoothly.

"The technical quality was not up to Dark And Darker Gold our standards, and we’ll work hard to improve it for the future," Ironmace said in a message posted on the Dark and Darker Discord server. "We were also the target of endless DDoS attacks and we are sorry that it impacted you. We will investigate solutions to mitigate these issues in the future."

The April playtest was supposed to be the last one before Dark and Darker launches into early access, but Ironmace implied on Twitter that there will be more to come—understandable, under the circumstances.

I've reached out to Ironmace, Valve, and Greenberg Glusker for more information, and will update if I receive a reply.

Dark and Darker dev starts and then pauses GoFundMe for Nexon legal battle: 'The reality of the situation is that their end goal is to bleed us dry in court fees'

The legal battle between publishing giant Nexon and a small group of ex-employees at Ironmace who left to Darker Gold make their own game is only getting uglier. Nexon's claims that Ironmace's Dark and Darker illegally uses code and concepts from its own cancelled "P3" project have so far resulted in a police raid on Ironmace's South Korean studio and the official removal of Dark and Darker's Steam page.

Ironmace is fighting the claim, having this week published its own evidence that Dark and Darker was developed from scratch and utilized purchased assets from the Unreal library. Whether or not Nexon has a case against Ironmace, the verdict isn't likely to come before months of expensive legal proceedings.

Today, an Ironmace admin on the Dark and Darker Discord named Luci published an open letter, intentionally without consulting Ironmace leadership, about the stressful legal battle and detailing what they believe is an attempt by a large company to financially outlast its smaller competitor.