Prototype releases and articles published in 2025 by Sega Dreamcast Info

2025 is coming to an end, and it's time to take a look back at a year full of surprises for Sega Dreamcast Info. The year was marked by the presentation of unusual prototypes, the publication of exhaustive articles, the discovery of the Official Half-Life Dreamcast Manual, the celebration of the site's fifth birthday, but above all by the quarter-century anniversary of some of the Dreamcast's iconic titles. It's incredible to think that we were there 25 years ago, privileged witnesses to the heyday of SEGA's last console.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that 2026 will bring its share of surprises, whether on Dreamcast or other consoles. In the meantime, to celebrate the arrival of the new year 2026, enjoy around twenty DC prototypes covering almost all of the games developed by Visual Concept on Dreamcast, including the enigmatic Unreleased Over The Top Soccer (the FIFA of SEGA)!

New Year's gift for 2024/2025 (December 29, 2024)

Every December 29th it is customary for me to present to you a special treat as a gift for the coming new year (Vectorman PS2 for 2023/2024, the story of No Cliché for 2022/2023, etc.). For the transition from 2024 to 2025, an early prototype of Half-Life Dreamcast containing well-kept secrets about Valve's FPS was perfect for the occasion:

Behind the scenes of Half-Life Dreamcast's conception: an early prototype and exclusive testimonials: Presentation of an early prototype of Half-Life Dreamcast, with a behind-the-scenes look at its development by Captivation Digital Laboratories programmer Robert Morgan and Sierra game producer Jeff Pobst. The HL DC prototype's particularities are numerous, as rarely seen. They touch on every aspect of a video game (Programming, Level Design, UI/UX, Game Design, Game Art, Game Feel). You'll find out why it was cancelled and how it was developed. Quite a challenge!

The fifth anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast Info website (May 23, 2025)

The Sega Dreamcast Info website was launched five years ago (May 23, 2020). It was initially created to archive the digitization of 35mm reels containing French SEGA Mega Drive commercials from 1993. The site was never intended to host anything other than the content of the 35mm reels of the “SEGA c'est plus fort que toi” commercials. Since then, however, it has been regularly updated with new content, including game prototypes, making-of articles, interviews, concept art, and much more. Over the past five years, many discoveries have been made, contributing to the history of video games, and the Dreamcast in particular.

So, as with December 29th, May 23rd of each year is a significant date for the site, ideally with something out of the ordinary being made available to the community (Fear Effect Inferno PS2 in 2024, etc.). Following on from the New Year's gift, the decision was made to offer fans of both the Dream Machine and Half-Life scans of the Official Manual for the Dreamcast game in 2025:

The Half-Life Dreamcast Souvenir Disc: A game ready to be marketed: The purchase of this official copy of Half-Life Dreamcast, with its user manual, inserts and label stuck on the souvenir disc, means that you can now print out, assemble and burn your own version of the game at home with original material, as if it had just come from the factory. The contents of the disc correspond to the May 23, 2001 prototype.

Sega Dreamcast Info celebrates the 25th anniversary of the release of some iconic Dreamcast games in 2025 in its own special way

Twenty-five years ago, cult and innovative titles for the Dreamcast appeared on the market. At the time, some of us, who were then just children, teenagers, or young adults, dreamed of getting our hands on these games as we read their previews in the specialist press and waited impatiently, counting down the days until we could play them. Sega Dreamcast Info took the opportunity to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of some of these games by offering special prototypes for download, showing them in a new light:

Unbuckle your seatbelts and fire up your Dreamcast, the alternative version of Crazy Taxi from November 1999 will surprise you: The November 14, 1999 prototype of Crazy Taxi Dreamcast has features that were eventually removed from the final version. They allow you to change the angle of view on the car as you wish. They transform the game into a whole new one. Crazy Taxi meets GTA!

Samba De Amigo Dreamcast: When journalists danced to the beat in the E3 exhibition hall: Presentation of an E3 prototype, a Demo, of Samba De Amigo Dreamcast. During the 2000 edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, journalists from all over the world were able to discover a Demo of Samba De Amigo Dreamcast. For a few days, the E3 exhibition hall was transformed into a discotheque.

Jet Set Radio Dreamcast and its early American prototype: Over 25 years of style, music, and revolution: The July 31, 2000 prototype of Jet Set Radio Dreamcast features a Debug Menu and Cheats that make it easier to explore Smilebit's game. Content exclusive to America was mid-development, with preliminary versions of Bantam Street and Grind Square. This build also provides a better understanding of the localization and translation process for a video game.

Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast and its Debug Menu: A cult RPG released over 25 years ago: This page lists the Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast prototypes incorporating a Debug Menu, featuring a version dating from a few days before the final Japanese release (a mix of English and Japanese language). Several chapters explain how to use the Debug Menu of this RPG from Overworks, a hit on SEGA's final console.

Daytona USa (2001) Dreamcast : Des courses semées de prototypes: This page lists several prototypes of Daytona USA 2001 Dreamcast, including a surprising Japanese build that reveals secrets about the porting of SEGA's hit game to Dreamcast. In particular, it shows a draft of its online mode, a provisional title screen reminiscent of the Saturn version, and, most importantly, unused music from a game mode that may have been removed!

2025: The beginning of the publication of articles about Quantic Dream and its games

In 2023, Romain Villiez was wondering about Quantic Dream's Unreleased game Quark  for the Dreamcast. He wanted to learn more about this title. He decided to document it. The more he dug, the more information he gathered about the French development studio and its other titles. His article turned into several covering the creation of the Parisian company up to the release of Fahrenheit PlayStation 2/Xbox. His research ultimately spanned several years. 2025 finally saw the publication of 5 of his 8 planned articles on QD and its games:

The origins of Quantic Dream: Behind the scenes of the creation of Nomad Soul, Quark, Blast, Omikron 2 Exodus, The Nomad Soul Karma and Fahrenheit: This article dedicated to the birth of Quantic Dream functions as a homepage listing all the contributions written for this famous French development studio. You can read the Making-Of with testimonials from the people who designed them for the following games, sometimes accompanied by prototypes, Artworks and Game Design documents.

Come with us behind the scenes of The Nomad Soul and its Dreamcast prototype, a game by Quantic Dream: A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of The Nomad Soul (Omikron) PC/Dreamcast/PlayStation 1, as told by the Quantic Dream team in charge of its development. A Dreamcast prototype and game design documents are available for download. Programming a game like this was no simple task, and the project was an ambitious one.

A look back at the origins and genesis of Quark Dreamcast: In the early 2000s, Quantic Dream was constantly communicating about Quark, one of the most coveted Dreamcast Unreleased titles, but there were still many grey areas surrounding it. This article, with testimonials from its developers, attempts to clear them up, providing additional information about it and new Artworks contextualizing it. Not to mention fax scans containing suggested ideas.

Concepts and analysis of the Quark Dreamcast/PC demo, an unreleased game from Quantic Dream: This page highlights several Concepts Arts of Quark Dreamcast and analyzes its Demo, focusing on its artistic direction, the concept of animals, and the gameplay mechanics that accompany them through images from this famous Unreleased Quantic Dream title. The Artworks in this article, magnificent watercolors painted and shared by Thierry Doizon, perfectly illustrate the atmosphere of the game, the appearance of its characters, and its locations.

A fax exchange with suggestions of ideas for Quark Dreamcast between the American and French divisions of Quantic Dream: French and American developers at Quantic Dream exchanged drafts of the script and mechanics for Quark's quests via fax. Approximately 40 scans of faxs related to the world of Una, along with their transcriptions, are available on this page.

Other articles published in 2025

The making of Prodigal Xbox 360/PlayStation 3: When Pseudo Interactive merged Need For Speed and Devil May Cry: Introducing Prodigal Xbox 360/PS3 (Unreleased) from Pseudo Interactive, a game with huge potential, where Need For Speed meets Devil May Cry. Find out more about its cancellation, concept and storyline, and the reasons behind the closure of this talented development studio. You'll also be able to watch two videos, one used to sell it to the publisher and another recycling it as a new game, Cloverfield The Game.

Thank you for your loyalty over the past five years. Long live SEGA, and long live Dreamcast! I wish you all a happy new year!