Capcom looks to extend its trademark for Deep Down, the Dragon's Dogma-inspired free-to-play online dungeon crawler that has been in development for years.

One of the first exclusive games revealed for PlayStation 4 was Deep Down, a free-to-play online dungeon crawler that was billed as a "spiritual successor" to Dragon's Dogma. Three years after its announcement, and Deep Down still doesn't have a release date in sight, but Capcom hasn't given up on the long-gestating project just yet. On the contrary, it just submitted a request to renew the Deep Down trademark for another five months.

Back in February of this year, Capcom renewed the Deep Down trademark for a six month extension, but nothing was shown of the game within that six month period. This latest trademark is for a shorter period of time, perhaps indicating that Capcom may be considering the possibility of abandoning the project if it doesn't start making significant progress.

Fans should keep their expectations in check, but if Deep Down has been making steady progress these past six months, then there's a chance we could see it at Tokyo Game Show in September. After all, Capcom usually has a presence at Tokyo Game Show, and the event would make for a prime opportunity to refresh gamers' memories about Deep Down.

Unfortunately, a Tokyo Game Show appearance from Deep Down may not be in the cards. Deep Down has been in development for a long time, but Capcom has been relatively silent about the project these past couple of the years. It seems as though it started to fade into obscurity not long after the controversy surrounding its lack of female playable characters, so maybe Capcom took fan feedback to heart, and decided to change that and other things about the project.

After all, it's status as a free-to-play game doesn't necessarily make sense any longer. For the most part, it's been shown that free-to-play titles aren't nearly as successful on consoles as they are on mobile devices, so perhaps Capcom is working to make Deep Down a more traditional gaming experience.

Of course, that's just speculation at this time. Until Capcom is ready to show off Deep Down again itself, all we can do is guess as to why the game is taking so long to finish development. It could be due to sweeping changes to how the game works or it could be due to other unforeseen issues keeping it in development hell, but if Capcom doesn't want people to forget about the project, it should probably make an effort to show something of the game soon.

Deep Down is in development for PlayStation 4.

Source: USPTO