Whatever Happened to Capcom’s Mysterious PS4 Exclusive?

If you watched the reveal event for the PS4 back in early 2013, you might remember a handful of the biggest announcements to come from the broadcast. Outside of showing off the PS4 itself for the first time, games that included Killzone: Shadow Fall, Knack, Infamous: Second Son, and Driveclub were all unveiled for the new console. In the midst of this string of PlayStation first-party reveals, though, Capcom also showed up to announce a new IP that left fans fascinated. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, this game never saw the light of day, and over a decade later, we’re not really sure why.

That Capcom game in question was dubbed Deep Down, which was simply supposed to be a working title. Set to be exclusive to PS4, Deep Down was equal parts sci-fi and fantasy. Its reveal trailer centered around group of characters doing battle with a dragon-like creature in a medieval dungeon setting. The game itself, however, was set in a futuristic version of New York, where players would be able to travel back in time, similar to what is seen in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Deep Down would also be a co-op and free-to-play and would attempt to push forward Capcom’s game technology at the time with incredibly impressive visuals.

Despite being so eagerly anticipated by PlayStation fans, though, Deep Down completely fell off the map not long after its reveal. And while it seems like the game will never end up coming about, Capcom has also never officially closed the door on it one day arriving.

Deep Down’s Development Was Truly Bizarre

To say that the development of Deep Down was odd would be an understatement. While video games are prone to enter “development hell” or go silent for long stretches of time without any updates, Deep Down was essentially never seen again after its initial debut. Following this reveal in 2013, the game was said to be planned for a launch in 2014. This didn’t happen, obviously, which led many to assume that something would come about in 2015. Again, this never came to fruition, and those at Capcom and PlayStation soon after stopped talking about the project as a whole.

Yoshinori Ono, who is most well-known for helming the Street Fighter series at Capcom, was one of the leads on Deep Down. After years of silence, in 2019, Ono provided a brief new update on the project and said that it hadn’t completely been abandoned just yet. Only a year later in 2020, Ono himself would depart from Capcom, which again seemed to kill any newfound hope that PlayStation fans had for the game to hit PS4 (or even PS5). Still, Capcom chose to say nothing officially on the matter, which has only led fans to assuming what went down.

Deep Down Was Somehow Never Officially Canceled

Perhaps the strangest thing about Deep Down is that Capcom never formally announced that the project was scrapped. Typically, when games that have publicly been revealed later get canned, a developer or publisher will announce that development has stopped. This happened at Xbox, for instance, with Scalebound and more recently with Perfect Dark. It was also even seen at Nintendo when work on Metroid Prime 4 had to completely restart. For Capcom to instead choose to remain silent about Deep Down is strange and suggests that it could somehow remain in the works to some degree.

To make this situation even more puzzling, a report from 2020 claimed that Deep Down was at one point close to being finished. Clearly, enough work was done on the game for it to have reached the point where it could have shipped. Capcom instead seems to have chosen to pump the brakes, though, for reasons that aren’t clear at all.

Deep Down Never Releasing Is Surely a Good Thing for Capcom

All these years later, it might seem sad that Deep Down was never released. Even games that were in development for a long stretch of time but ended up being horrible, like Duke Nukem Forever, are still looked upon somewhat positively because they eventually crossed the finish line. Deep Down will likely never give Capcom fans that same satisfaction, but it’s surely for the best.

Since Deep Down was going to be a free-to-play game, there surely would’ve been live-service elements to it. Despite how great Capcom and its games have been over the past few years, one thing the publisher still doesn’t do all that well is live-service. Games like Resident Evil: Re:Verse and Exoprimal have both been pretty disappointing on this front, with the former now being shut down. Capcom still can’t crack the code when it comes to live-service games, and it’s doubtful that Deep Down would’ve been able to buck that trend.

Nowadays, Capcom is in the midst of a renaissance and is releasing better games than it likely ever has. Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword are all on tap for 2026 and have been joined by steller releases such as Monster Hunter Wilds this year. Capcom has found a way to reach enormous new heights and has perhaps more goodwill than any other publisher in the gaming industry at this moment.

Even if Deep Down would have somehow contributed to this success, there’s a far greater chance that it would have been a dud and would have set the company back. As such, it’s almost certainly a good thing that Capcom moved on from the game. Still, over a decade after its reveal, I’m left fascinated by Deep Down and am endlessly curious about what happened behind the scenes.