This paper features research carried out at the Victoria and Albert Museum into the design history of Sega’s 2000 Dreamcast title, Skies of Arcadia (released in Japan as Eternal Arcadia). It was released by Overworks, a subsidiary of Sega, at an interesting point in Japanese computer game history. A new generation of video game consoles was in its infancy, and much speculation in the industry surrounded how networked gaming and large, open, tridimensional game worlds would change game design in the years ahead.