Author: Game Infliction

The dungeon-crawling PvPvE game Dark and Darker has been delisted from Steam after developer Ironmace was served with a cease and desist order and subsequent DMCA takedown.

As reported by Eurogamer, it appears Dark and Darker’s developer, Ironmace, may be in hot water as players recently noticed some of the game’s features abruptly stopped working, such as PvP and online co-op, followed by portions of its Steam page being scrubbed overnight including all trailers, screenshots, and store description.

An official statement was posted on the Dark and Darker Discord (by way of Reddit) stating, “To all our fans, we have recently been served a cease and desist letter and DMCA takedown by Nexon regarding Dark and Darker based on distorted claims.”

“We are currently working with our legal team to remedy this issue in the best manner possible. Due to the sensitive legal nature of this issue we must be careful with our statements so as to not jeopardize our position,” the Discord post read. “We ask for your understanding as we work to get the game back up as quickly as possible. Please know that we will do all that is possible for our fans. Thanks!”

Earlier this month, Ironmace had its offices searched by Korean officials on speculation that it might be in posession of stolen code and assets as nearly half of Ironmace’s 20-person team is made up of former Nexon employees. Although, Ironmace’s official statement regarding the matter was that the search was a “quick process” and “nothing was found.”

As for now, the future of Dark and Darker is uncertain. Currently, there’s no trace of the game’s page on Steam, as searching for it will bring you to the Steam home page. However, its community message board still appears to be active, with many fans confused by the sudden delisting.

Dark and Darker was scheduled to have another public playtest period run from April 14, 2023 to April 19, 2023, but as of now, it appears that may not happen.

Matthew Adler is a Commerce, Features, Guides, News, Previews, and Reviews writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewAdler as well as check out his curated IGN Playlists.

In the 1980s, everyone who owned a Nintendo Entertainment System knew the only way to fix a faulty game was to eject it, hold it to your lips, and blow on it. If it didn’t work after that, you simply repeated the process, with more force, until it finally worked. This was not only wrong but it was super gross, because you basically just sprayed spit particles all over your copy of Super Mario Bros. 3.

On top of being unhygienic, your kid-spit also probably contributed to corrosion on your cart’s contacts, and if your mouth was particularly juicy, a glob of nasty saliva could actually short some of the contacts, and that’s bad.

But what’s the real solution to this very real problem? Well, there are two that immediately spring to mind: one of which will cost you nothing but your time, and the other will cost you like $20 maybe? Depends. Oh, it also costs time. So time plus $20 for that second one.

Let’s take a look at how, exactly, your NES is able to entice the game to emerge from the cart. You might think there are ghosts inside, and the NES is a conduit for their spirits. It is simply impossible for me to prove there aren’t ghosts inside every video game cartridge, so to be safe, just assume your game collection is very haunted. However, there is science behind how your cartridge gets its code inside your game, although I guess technically it’s engineering, which is basically applied science. But I’m neither a scientist, nor an engineer, and as previously discussed I know very little about the spirit realm, but I’m going to do my best to explain the very simple theory behind how your game goes from your cart, to inside your NES, and then up on your screen.

In electrical work, the kind that concerns itself with outlets and wiring and the like, the most important requirement is that all connections be two things: electrically and mechanically sound. In other words, you could hypothetically just lay two bare wires across one another and have them conduct electricity, but a slight breeze or mouse whisper could separate them, breaking the circuit. In modern wiring, wires are twisted together snugly and then a wirenut is twisted over the top. This makes the wires play nicely together… forever. Electrically and mechanically sound.

With your NES cart, or pretty much any video game cartridge, the requirement isn’t there for a permanent, powerful connection. In fact that’s kind of the point. But you also don’t want your cartridges to just flop around inside the machine, so a balance has to be struck. The springiness of the NES’ 72-pin connector is such that you can slide in your cartridge without too much effort and have the pins give it just a nice little squeeze, a little electronic hug. The metal contacts of the connector and the contacts of the cartridge then create a beautiful pairing that allows the free movement of electrons from one to the other. It’s electrically sound and mechanically sound-enough.

But therein lies the problem. You see, the need to rely on that “springiness” to make a good connection to the cartridge contacts means given enough use, it wears out JUST enough to make it a real hassle. The 72-pin connector needs to make full contact with the cartridge’s contacts in order to work. The rituals we used to do as kids, like blowing on the cartridge, worked sometimes because the fail-state of the 72-pin connector wasn’t total. You might put the cart back in, all gross with spit, at a slightly different angle and that angle is enough to make contact.

“Why not just make the 72-pin connector grip harder, then?” That’s a good question. Without knowing for sure, I would imagine the designers of the original NES hardware probably didn’t expect man-children like me to use their products 30 years later, but it doesn’t take 30 years for the problems to start to arise. If the 72-pin connector’s grip were more forceful, the trade-off would be… well, ask anyone who had a first-generation Hyperkin Retron5 how terrifying it was to try to remove a cart from its vice-like grips. On top of that, every time you insert and eject a cartridge, you’re kind of ruining it. I mean, at basically a microscopic scale, sure, but it’s a destructive process nonetheless. That metal-on-metal contact, coupled with pulling the cart in and out, removes just the littlest bit of metal from the contacts and the connector. Just the smallest amount, you won’t even notice, probably in a lifetime. But if the connector had more force, the metal-on-metal scraping would be worse and perhaps even visible on the contacts after just a few use cycles. Again, looking at you, first gen Retron5.

So, to sum it up: the NES, and pretty much every other cartridge-based system, relies on an electrically sound contact between pieces of metal, which in the case of the NES is done through the 72-pin connector. That connector’s ability to grip weakens over time, which leads to bad connections between the NES and the game cartridge, which leads to that annoying blinking red light and things like a flashing screen or random characters on the screen instead of sprites.

I should quickly point out, there are plenty of other things that can cause NES failure. Corroded contacts on the game or the 72-pin connector, issues with the kind-of annoying spring-loaded mechanism inside the NES not lining up correctly, corrosion on the board of the NES or the game. There are lots of reasons why your system might not work, but the biggest culprit of all is that 72-pin connector. Thankfully, it’s really easy to fix. In fact, I’ve already made a video to show you how, as well as show you a little trick to get a little extra use out of an old connector that involves a pot of boiling water and some patience. It’s at the top of this column! And it’s a delight.

Beyond blowing on carts, did you have any NES rituals you would undertake to try and get them to work? Let me know in the comments.

Seth Macy is Executive Editor, IGN Commerce, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him hosting the Nintendo Voice Chat podcast.

The Destiny 2 community has been mourning the passing of Lance Reddick, remembering him through tributes like flocking en masse to The Tower. And, according to Bungie, Reddick will continue to live on in more voicework for the game.

Reddick, who’s also known for his work in The Wire, Fringe, and the John Wick series (including this weekend’s John Wick: Chapter 4), voiced Commander Zavala in Destiny 2. Bungie followed up on its initial statement about Reddick’s passing in a blog post yesterday.

“The tributes that have poured in for Lance have been overwhelming; from endless heartfelt messages on social media to impromptu gatherings of respect in Zavala’s corner of the Tower, overlooking the Last City,” the blog read, in part. “As an actor, musician, gamer, and family man, the passion Lance brought to the things he loved was reflected in the eyes and hearts of all who loved him. For now, we will honor his presence through his performances yet to come in the game, and in the memories that will last us a lifetime.”

Reddick, who died on March 17 at the age of 60, appeared in other games as well, voicing Sylens in Horizon Zero Dawn. And, as Bungie noted, he was an avid gamer himself, and was an active voice in the Destiny community (read our tribute to Reddick’s impact on the gaming community here).

In its initial statement, Bungie called Reddick “an iconic presence on screen, in Destiny, and most importantly, in person.”

“His love for our community shined through in Commander Zavala, in his uncompromising dedication to his craft, and out of the radiating kindess that touched those around him,” it went on. “To say he will be missed is a profound understatement, yet no less true.”

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.