Ironmace, the developer behind the multiplayer action game Dark and Darker Gold, is sued by Nexon over claims it come up with a game with stolen assets and code.

On Friday (April 14), Nexon filed a case naming Ironmace at the district court in Washington. The lawsuit lists Ironmace founder Terence Park and then one of his employees as defendants and shows that the pair are former Nexon employees.

During their time at Nexon, the defendants labored on a now-canceled game called P3, and Nexon has alleged that stolen code through the project is being used to cultivate Dark And Darker.

“In flagrant breach of the obligations to Nexon, anyone defendants stole P3 source code, audiovisual, along with materials that Nexon developed by way of a substantial expenditure of their time and money,” reads the suit, as detailed in the below video (via Rock Paper Shotgun).

Nexon added that runners' materials, that had been found on one defendant’s personal servers, were chosen “to produce a substantially similar gaming called ‘dark and darker buy gold’“.

“Condoning defendants’ conduct would threaten Nexon, the gaming industry, and every one of the consumers who enjoy playing sophisticated game titles,” the suit continued.

“Video game developers may not be able to invest years in person-hours in developing game titles if their employees could simply transfer their employer’s project files to their personal servers you need a new company to use their employer’s investment and inventive work for themselves.”

The lawsuit aims to counteract Ironmace from continuing to cultivate Dark And Darker, while Nexon can also be seeking an undisclosed level of compensation as well as any “ill-gotten gains” the studio renders from Dark And Darker. Ironmace has denied Nexon’s allegations and claimed “no copyrighted materials or misappropriated trade secrets were chosen” because of the studio.

In an announcement published recently, Ironmace also denied stealing materials from P3 and argued the defendant only had P3 files for their personal servers to “improve the performance of his team” over the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nexon’s lawsuit has already seen the action removed from Steam, ultimately causing Ironmace to release Dark And Darker‘s latest playtest through torrenting.