In a world whereCyberpunk 2077is creating a whirlwind of hype, it appears that another long-delayed game from the past decade is still in with a small chance of being released.Deep Down, a co-operative dungeon crawler from Capcom, which was originally a PlayStation 4 exclusive, has had its trademark renewed.
Originally announced in February 2013,Deep Downwas due to be a free-to-play title in the vein ofDark Souls, with procedurally generated dungeons in a medieval style setting, featuring fantasy creatures such as shapeshifters, orgres, and dragons.
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Even thoughDeep Downhas been long forgotten by many, and rumors have persisted of its demise over the years (despite supposedly being almost complete), Capcom have never officially canceled the game. It was originally designed to take advantage of the PlayStation 4 hardware, using a new game engine calledPanta Rhei, that would supersede Capcom’s proprietaryMT Frameworkengine. However just like the game,Panta Rheieffectively vanished in 2014, and Capcom would continue to useMT Framework,and theRE (Resident Evil) Engine,for the eighth generation of consoles.
Although producer Yoshinori Ono revealed last year thatthe original development team behindDeep Downhad been disbanded, he also stated “It’s not been completely given up on.” Indeed, the renewing of theDeep Downtrademark has become a yearly event, despite there being no major information about the game released since 2015, when Kazunori Sugiura revealed that the game was delayed so it could be expanded, and provide longer appeal for gamers.
While there remains little hope ofDeep Downappearing any time soon, the repeated renewal of the trademark does suggest that Capcom are at least considering ways to make the title, or a development of it, work with the new generation of consoles that arrive later this year. As with other games which undergo long development cycles, or repeated delays, knowing whether they will be worth the wait is extremely difficult - for every positiveCyberpunk 2077(presuming the positive early rumors are true)orDiablo 3story,there is aDuke Nukem Forever, orToo Human.
However, it may also simply be a case of Capcom protecting an IP that it has no real plans to use, simply to stop another developer using the title for their own game. Gamers with good memories can, for now at least, continue to wonder what the next chapter of the long-running development story ofDeep Downwill be - although in all likelihood it will bethe renewal of trademark in June 2021.
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