Cognition Dissemination: Six Years After Its Reveal, We’re Probably Never Going Deep Down

It’s a little tough to believe, but it’s been six years since Capcom announced Deep Down. The game was confirmed at the PlayStation Meeting keynote in 2013, alongside the first PlayStation 4 hardware and software details. It was one of the biggest graphical showcases for the system, shown through the jaw-dropping graphics displayed in the announcement trailer. It sure looked authentic at the time with the addition of a placeholder gameplay UI and clarification from Capcom that the game would be their first title running on Panta Rhei, their new internal game engine.

So, it was a pity when the game’s development progress and perception around the project tumbled downward, which culminated with it going missing without explanation.

Excitement for it first started dwindling shortly after the reveal, when it became clear the game didn’t look anywhere near as good as the initial trailer. This wasn’t too surprising given how its supposed graphics were far superior to every other PS4 game shown at the time, but no one likes being misled. It was also subsequently made clear that it wasn’t a successor to Dragon’s Dogma despite ostensibly inheriting its medieval fantasy trappings, something that players enter through an in-game simulation. But these facts weren’t enough to reduce overall excitement for the project.

Interest dwindled further when it was revealed to be an online game handled by Capcom Online Games, a then-established district separate from the main Capcom branch. Sony was also confirmed to be on board for funding, which explained why they prominently showcased the title at their Tokyo Game Show conference that year, though promotional efforts were still being handled by COG. The game itself also looked… pokey? The gameplay style demonstrated early on mainly relied on poking a spear, though also contained an option to use magic attacks that resembled bombs. Subsequent trailers displayed other styles, some of which utilized the kind of hack and slash action several initially expected to be the main action.

The game only made sporadic appearances through trailers of varying length and a mini development diary, only for it to disappear after early 2014. Capcom hasn’t mentioned the game since early 2015, though not all the boxes corresponding with signs showing when a game has been silently cancelled have been checked.

It’s been over four years since the game was last shown, but the official website is remarkably still accessible. All the trailers are still available on the COG YouTube channel, collected together in a playlist that notably doesn’t include the first trailer, perhaps due to its misleading presentation. Capcom has also continued extending ownership of the trademark, and last did so at the start of June last year — hilariously just before E3 2018, which gave some people false hope.

Those signs aside, the project has been pretty dead. Capcom hasn’t mentioned the game in interviews, which either means they’ve told interviewers not ask about it, or the interviewers themselves don’t remember it. The Panta Rhei engine also vanished, though there’s a chance that elements of it were compiled as part of the RE Engine, which was used for Resident Evil 7 and the Resident Evil 2 remake, and will be used for Devil May Cry V.

There are several rumors suggesting one of the big reasons Deep Down’s development was put on hold was thanks to it being a performance disaster. This is easy to believe considering severe issues can be seen in the E3 2014 trailer. Capcom probably felt they had to try and match the original teaser’s graphical prowess as closely as possible, but it proved too much for the system to handle. Whether it also performed poorly on the PS4 Pro is anyone’s guess.

Deep Down seems, uh, buried deep down within Capcom’s development headquarters, but there are some ways in which they could bring it back. They could consider making it a VR experience for PlayStation VR, given the game’s premise. It takes place in New York City in 2094, and involves players searching through the memories of specific people and traversing dungeons involved with them. The concept could be reintroduced by fully placing the player in the shoes of the main character diving through those memories, though this might also involve making the dungeon crawling a first-person experience.

Another idea would involve reusing its assets for a new Dragon’s Dogma game. Director Hideaki Itsuno mentioned to VG247 that Capcom gave him a choice between directing a new game in the series or Devil May Cry V a few years ago. He chose the latter, but there’s a chance he could helm another DD game afterward.

There’s a chance Deep Down could resurface as a next-generation console game, perhaps in the form of my first idea above (those are free, by the way). Though it would be particularly humorous and sad if it went through the same development trend again. There’s a much larger chance that the game will remain in limbo for good, as Capcom silently moves on to other titles like, I don’t know, a new Dragon’s Dogma game. It would be nice if they provided an official comment on its development status sometime soon.