LEVEL-5 has delayed DECAPOLICE again, moving its planned release from 2026 into 2027. The company announced the new window during LEVEL5 VISION 2026 II on September 10, extending the wait for its open-world crime suspense RPG by at least another year. A specific 2027 release date has not yet been announced.
The latest postponement continues a long series of delays for DECAPOLICE. LEVEL-5 originally announced the game for a 2023 release before pushing it to 2024, then delayed it again to 2026 in September 2024. The new 2027 target means the game will now arrive at least four years later than its earliest public release window if the revised schedule holds.
LEVEL-5 previously said the additional development time was necessary because of the project’s scale. President and CEO Akihiro Hino described DECAPOLICE as featuring a large open world and said the team was building systems to support both its investigative gameplay and a dense environment filled with incidents. The company also planned to coordinate the game’s release with an anime adaptation, adding another component to the broader project.
DECAPOLICE follows rookie detective Harvard Marks, the leader of a special investigations unit operating in a futuristic city. Its central mechanic involves DECASIM, a virtual recreation of reality that stores traces and memories connected to past crimes. Players can use clues discovered inside the simulation to investigate cases in the real world, blending detective work with RPG systems and combat.
The game has changed platforms during its extended development as well. It was initially announced for PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, with a PC version added when LEVEL-5 confirmed the move to 2026. Earlier in 2026, the company then updated the planned lineup again by adding Nintendo Switch 2 while dropping the PS4 and original Switch versions.
That leaves PS5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC as the currently announced platforms. LEVEL-5 has not indicated that the newly announced delay will result in another platform change, nor has it provided a narrower launch period within 2027. The company also has not announced a specific technical issue behind the latest postponement.
DECAPOLICE has remained one of LEVEL-5’s more ambitious new properties throughout its development. Unlike established franchises such as Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven and Yo-kai Watch, it is a new intellectual property built around a combination of crime investigation, open-world exploration and turn-based RPG combat. The project has received multiple trailers and public demonstrations since its announcement, making the repeated delays particularly noticeable.
The latest move also places DECAPOLICE among several games that have recently slipped into 2027. Other projects including Chronoscript : The Endless End and No Rest for the Wicked 1.0 have similarly moved out of their earlier 2026 windows, although for unrelated development reasons.
For LEVEL-5, the priority appears to remain giving the project additional time rather than committing to another specific date too early. The company has repeatedly emphasized the scale and complexity of DECAPOLICE, particularly its open-world structure and interconnected investigation systems. With the release now moved into 2027, the game has another extended development period before players can see how those systems come together.
DECAPOLICE remains in development for PS5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC. LEVEL-5 has not provided a month or season for the revised 2027 window, so a more precise launch date will have to come in a future update. Until then, the latest announcement confirms that one of LEVEL-5’s longest-awaited projects will miss 2026 entirely.
