Apparently, not even the ex-head of Sony Worldwide Studios knows what happened to Capcom's Deep Down, the action-packed dungeon crawler meant to launch as a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Deep Down originally entered the public consciousness more than eight years ago during the PS4 reveal event in February 2013. It reappeared at Tokyo Game Show that year, complete with news that the Soulslike title would launch as a cooperative free-to-play experience. However, barring trademark renewals and a few nebulous details about its progress, nothing of consequence has surfaced regarding the project since then.
Yoshinori Ono, the longtime Street Fighter figurehead, served as producer on Deep Down alongside Kazunori Sugiura, the Managing Producer behind Monster Hunter Frontier Online. With some of its top talent leading the charge, Capcom invested heavily in Deep Down, even announcing it in tandem with a new proprietary game engine, Panta Rhei. After years of silence, Ono confirmed in 2019 that the original development crew had disbanded, leaving Capcom to place Deep Down on indefinite hold. But, according to VGC sources, this shelving of the co-op dungeon crawler occurred after it entered a "near-complete state."
The former head of Sony Worldwide Studios, Shawn Layden, recently spoke candidly about the gaming industry in an interview with Bloomberg. One piece of the discussion that didn't make it to print was Layden's comment about the state of Deep Down. When asked what happened to the PS4 exclusive, the ex-PlayStation boss apparently had to pause for a moment before replying, "I have no idea." Bloomberg's Jason Schreier shared the anecdote in the following post on his personal Twitter account:
Capcom renewed the Deep Down trademark in June 2020, indicating all hope isn't lost for a potential revival. Should the dungeon crawler one day resurface, however, it won't be with Yoshinori Ono at the helm. The Street Fighter producer departed Capcom several months ago after calling the company home for nearly 30 years.
Deep Down doesn't count as the only second-party PlayStation exclusive to end up as vaporware. Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two Interactive famously announced Agent at Sony's 2009 press conference. Rumors and speculation aside, the Cold War-set stealth title vanished without another word.
Capcom won't let the trademark die, but PlayStation 4's Deep Down seems like little more than vaporware now.
Source: Jason Schreier/Twitter