Deep Down Producer Says It Isn't Dead

Deep Down was first announced in 2013 as a PlayStation 4 exclusive, but we haven’t seen or heard much from it since. The last news we heard was all the way back in 2015, when producer Yoshinori Ono said that the game would look “completely different” from the initial trailer the next time we saw it, and that the game was aiming for a very realistic experience.

But the game has not been seen since, beyond a trademark renewal in 2017 that got fans’ hopes up. Now, Ono has spoken about the game for the first time in years, and it sounds like the game is not being worked on, but could theoretically still happen.

In an interview with Eurogamer that primarily focuses on Street Fighter V (which he is also executive producer on), Ono briefly discussed the long-dormant dragon hunting game, admitting that he still has some hope that the game will be completed one day.

“The original team is clearly no longer together at this point, but people might have noticed that we’ve kept the trademark registered, and it’s not been completely given up on,” he told Eurogamer. “Every year we examine titles we’re doing in future, and we bring up projects to approve and move forward. There’s not much I can say about it, but if you’ve noticed we’ve kept the trademark it means we haven’t given up on the title completely.”

When asked about the TGS trailer from 2014, Ono said that the team had “the concept developed a bit further than that.”

This isn’t confirmation that Deep Down will still happen, but it suggests that the game’s eventual release remains a possibility. It certainly wouldn’t be the first major PlayStation title to take its time releasing: The Last Guardian was first revealed seven years before its eventual release, while Until Dawn was announced as a PlayStation 3 title five years before its eventual PS4 release. Then there’s Shenmue III, which will release on November 19, a full 18 years after Shenmue II.