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A battle for who should be credited for Ark: Survival Evolved have reached into legal action – legal action that could result in the development of the game being halted and removed from sale.

The developers involved are Trendy Entertainment (the company behind Dungeon Defenders) and Studio Wildcard (the game dev behind Ark: Survival Evolve), which launched in early access in June last year on both Steam and Xbox One. According to the court documents acquired by Kotaku , Trendy alleges that game designer Jeremy Stieglitz, who was their former creative director, breached his contract and been secretly working on Ark Survival Evolve since he resigned from his position back in 2014.

Trendy also claims that Stieglitz has attempted to contact employees at Trendy after he left, in an attempt to get them to join on a new project. And this was presumed to be a violation of his agreement not to interfere with Trendy as well.

Trendy believes that Stieglitz took tech and important trade secrets established at Trendy, and used them for his own benefits and to launch Ark: Survival Evolved. The developer also believes that those actions had a massive negative impact on Trendy’s business. The argument being that Ark: Survival evolved is a direct competitor to Dungeon Defenders, Not just for players, but also for studio talents. As for Wildcard, they claim that Stieglitz didn’t play a big role in the development of Ark: Survival Evolved but that isn’t enough to stop Trendy from seeking “injunctive relief and damages”.

If the case goes to court on April 27, and if Trendy is granted their injunction until the case gets sorted out. In other words, it could mean that Wildcard would have to stop any work involving Ark: Survival Evolved, and remove the game from being sold on PC and Xbox One. Wildcard suggest that the claims made by Trendy are “irrelevant, immaterial, impertinent, and scandalous”. I personally was expecting to grab a copy of this game later this year but depending on what happens on this case, there is a chance that I won’t be able to.

With that said though, what do you think about all of this? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!