Ironshield HWID Bans — How They Work & How to Bypass

Ironshield is the custom anti-cheat system developed by IRONMACE for Dark and Darker, the extraction-based dungeon crawler that has built a dedicated player community since its early access launch. Unlike studios that license third-party solutions, IRONMACE chose to build Ironshield in-house to have complete control over anti-cheat enforcement in their game.

Ironshield was developed in response to widespread cheating during Dark and Darker's initial playtest periods. The game's high-stakes loot system — where dying means losing your gear — made cheating particularly destructive to the player experience. IRONMACE invested in a custom solution that could be tailored specifically to Dark and Darker's gameplay mechanics and technical architecture.

As a custom, single-game anti-cheat, Ironshield is less documented than established systems like EAC or BattlEye. However, its hardware fingerprinting capabilities are comparable. Players who receive HWID bans in Dark and Darker face permanent restrictions that require comprehensive hardware spoofing to bypass.

Ironshield collects hardware identifiers through a combination of system queries and game client telemetry. While it is a newer system compared to established anti-cheats, it covers the standard identifier categories that make hardware bans effective. The identifiers Ironshield tracks include:

Disk drive serial numbers — firmware serials from connected storage devices. Ironshield reads these through controller-level queries to prevent simple registry-based spoofing.

Motherboard identifiers — board serial number and system UUID from SMBIOS tables. These are primary anchors in the hardware fingerprint.

Network adapter MAC addresses — physical adapters are enumerated and their hardware addresses logged. Ironshield filters virtual interfaces to focus on real hardware.

Windows installation identifiers — MachineGUID and related registry values. These help detect OS reinstalls and provide supplementary fingerprint data.

Steam-specific identifiers — because Dark and Darker is distributed through Steam, Ironshield can access Steam client data including the local Steam ID cache and machine-specific installation identifiers. This adds a platform-specific layer to the fingerprint.

Ironshield's enforcement is permanent for hardware bans. Because it only protects a single game, there is no cross-game propagation concern — but the ban is strict within Dark and Darker. New accounts on flagged hardware are typically banned shortly after connecting. IRONMACE has stated publicly that they have zero tolerance for cheating, and Ironshield reflects that position.

TraceX rewrites all identifiers Ironshield collects, including the Steam-specific data that makes Dark and Darker's fingerprinting unique. When you run TraceX once:

All hardware serials — disk drives, motherboard, network adapters — are replaced with clean, format-valid values beneath Ironshield's observation layer.

Windows installation identifiers are rotated to break any link to a previously flagged OS profile.

Steam-specific machine identifiers and cached data are handled, ensuring no platform-level residuals connect the new session to a banned account.

Ironshield reads the spoofed values as genuine hardware and builds a clean fingerprint from them. The machine appears completely new, and no ban match is found. TraceX has remained undetected against Ironshield since Dark and Darker's early access launch.