Skies of Arcadiais one of the most beloved JRPGs ever, and for good reason. It’s one of the few games ever created that manage to completely immerse players into its world and had them live through a breathtaking adventure. It mixes heavy and comedic themes, lovable characters, exciting storytelling, and a gorgeous atmosphere. It’s a perfectly unique game, typical of the Sega Dreamcast era.
As you probably already know, seeing only desperate and thirstySkies of Arcadiafans would click on this article,Skies of Arcadiafirst released on July 23, 2025 on the Dreamcast in Japan, under the titleEternal Arcadia. A GameCube version was later released in 2002,Skies of Arcadia Legends, adding tons of new side-content. That version sadly lacks a fun element from the original, a mini-game regarding party member Fina and her weapon Cupil, seeing that it used the Dreamcast’s VMU to play.
Anyway, let’s think about all this in a rational way. Obviously, Kenji Hiruta’s words don’t mean a newSkies of Arcadiagame is coming. Even by a stretch, this could only be considered to be teasing something if someone like an ex-producer of the original game were the one to say these words. I hate to say it this way, but if you check the game’s credits, Hiruta was “just” a programmer back then, and he currently doesn’t work at Sega anymore.
But hear me out. I believe what Hiruta hopes to achieve is to motivate fans to be even more vocal than usual, as this could push things around. It’s not like Skies of Arcadiafans aren’t already super vocal, mind you. As you probably already know,Skies of Arcadiais strongly linked with theSakura Taisenfranchise (and theValkyria Chroniclesfranchise). In fact, Kenji Hiruta also worked onSakura Taisen. I’ve read andcovered onDualShockerspretty much every single interview with Sega developers regardingProject Sakura Wars(check out our translated playthrough). The game’s development director, Tetsuya Okubo, also worked onSkies of Arcadia.
One of the elements which often came out of these interviews is the fact thatSakura Taisen’s developers thought many times in the past about making a newSakura Taisengame, but a new game project never truly launched. That was until 2016, after theSakura Taisenfranchisewon the fan popularity poll at Sega Fes 2016. In these past 20 years, developers at Sega have definitely thought about bringing backSkies of Arcadiamore than once, so the possibility isn’t zero. However, I think it’ll be really hard for it to happen unless it goes through the Switch andSega Agesremaster route.
[pullquote]“We can only wish Kodama and her team have the opportunity to bringSkies of Arcadiaback."[/pullquote]
I think the best shot we have at a newSkies of Arcadiagame project is to show our enthusiasm for the original game. This way, Sega could end up asking M2 to remaster it on Nintendo Switch, via theSega Agesports. WhileSega Ageson Switch is only made of arcade and fairly retro titles as of now, and while it might take over a year from now, I think that Dreamcast games will definitely end up releasing through that path.
M2’s developers already mentioned they can run NAOMIÂ games on Switch, after all. Moreover, Rieko Kodama, one of the main producers ofSkies of Arcadia,is now working at M2 on the SwitchSega Agesports. We can only wish Kodama and her team have the opportunity to bringSkies of Arcadiaback. After such a remaster is successful and the fans proved their enthusiasm, maybe then a sequel or a new game wouldn’t be a dream anymore.
