Matt Webster’s career once seemed destined to stay within the walls of Electronic Arts. He first joined the company in 1990 and spent nearly twenty years contributing to the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises while they were under the Criterion banner, a studio EA acquired in 2004.
In early 2023, however, Webster, together with fellow Criterion alumni Steve Uphill, Pete Lake, Andrei Shires and Alan McDairmant, decided to break away and establish their own independent studio in the United Kingdom, Fuse Games. Fast‑forward three and a half years, and the fledgling studio is preparing to launch its debut title, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, which will be published by the newly autonomous label Secret Mode. Galactic Racer arrives roughly 24 years after the last Star Wars‑themed racing game, 2002’s Racer Revenge.
In the intervening decades, the racing genre has generally lost steam in the mainstream market. Amazon recently cancelled a publishing agreement with UK studio Maverick Games for its upcoming driving title Clutch, with Amazon Games head Jeff Gattis explaining that the product “didn’t feel like a real market fit.” Meanwhile, Criterion itself has pivoted away from racing to focus on the Battlefield franchise.
Despite these signals, Webster remains convinced that a demand exists for a Star Wars racing experience. “We clearly see an audience for a Star Wars racing game,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.
“Our community feedback – video views, article reads – suggests we’re not alone in that belief.” Webster points out that genres tend to be cyclical. After a period dominated by shooters, other types of games inevitably re‑emerge. “As more people play video games, even the tiniest niches can find a larger audience,” he explained.
He believes gamers are hungry for "fun, interesting, compelling new experiences that they haven’t seen before," and he feels Galactic Racer delivers exactly that. The team’s vision is to craft something fresh, an arcade‑style racer that also pushes the boundaries of what a racing game can be when it’s no longer tied to realistic tyres and tarmac. “We have tracks that climb the side of an active volcano,” Webster said. “It feels like a roller‑coaster at times.” Beyond the high‑octane thrills, Galactic Racer deliberately subverts long‑standing conventions of the racing genre.
Traditionally, racers revolve around car collection—a mechanic that has remained largely unchanged for two decades. Webster wants to tear that model apart and borrow ideas from other genres. The game incorporates consequential decision‑making, especially around crashes.
In many modern racers, a rewind button nullifies the impact of a mistake, but Webster insists on re‑introducing real consequences. “If you crash too often, you’re sent back to the start, but you keep some meta‑progression that puts you in a stronger position,” he explained.
“When you’re on your last allowed crash, the tension spikes and you start weighing risk versus reward.” The design philosophy draws heavily from roguelike titles such as Hades, Returnal and Slay the Spire—games built for infinite replayability. "Racing thrives on replayability," Webster noted, "so marrying it with roguelike loops feels like a match made in heaven." Each run through Galactic Racer offers a slightly different configuration of tracks, power‑ups and challenges, encouraging players to experiment and improve over successive attempts. Webster acknowledges that this approach marks a bold departure from the hand‑holding typical of many AAA releases, especially in a year when industry titans like GTA 6 are slated for launch. Galactic Racer is set to release on October 6, comfortably ahead of GTA 6’s November 19 debut, yet still close to other high‑profile launches such as Control: Resonance and Silent Hill: Townfall on September 24.
He notes that crowded release windows are nothing new. “People used to call September ‘murderers’ row,’ and October was always packed,” he recalled. “We’re aware the market is competitive, but we have a healthy confidence tempered by a realistic view of how things might turn out.” The conversation naturally shifted to the broader industry climate, especially the wave of layoffs that has swept through studios in recent months.
Webster, a veteran of two decades at EA, remembers a similar contraction fifteen years ago. “Great teams make great games, and great games find an audience,” he said. He observes a current aversion to risk among publishers, which creates opportunities for studios willing to take calculated bets. “If you’re not willing to gamble, you limit your own potential,” he warned.
Launching an independent studio in 2023 has not been without hurdles. Securing funding proved difficult; many investors questioned the wisdom of starting a new studio in a volatile environment.
Webster reflected, “I spent 32 years at EA inside a bubble. Starting Fuse was a whole new world.
The principles I learned—building a solid team, refining a clear creative vision, staying disciplined while accepting that plans will always be imperfect—guided us.” He emphasized that an engaged, motivated team is the cornerstone of success. Fuse Games operates with a relatively lean core of about 75 people, a deliberate choice to avoid the boom‑and‑bust staffing cycles that plague many large developers.
Instead, the studio relies heavily on external partners to fill skill gaps. “We’re not constantly growing and shrinking,” Webster explained. “Our model is a small permanent core supplemented by trusted external studios that share our values, whether they’re providing transactional asset creation or acting as full‑fledged co‑development partners embedded in our daily stand‑ups, Slack channels and codebase.” He highlighted the UK’s mature development ecosystem as particularly conducive to this collaborative approach, noting that today’s external studios are eager to work on diverse projects rather than being forced into a single, monolithic pipeline. The speed of Galactic Racer’s development underscores the viability of this hybrid model.
Fuse was founded in January 2023; just three and a half years later, the team has built a studio, assembled a cross‑generational workforce, and delivered a full‑scale AAA‑quality title using Unreal Engine 5—a tool none of them had mastered at the outset. “It feels like an achievement, and we did it in a sustainable way,” Webster said. A notable aspect of Fuse’s roster is the infusion of youthful talent alongside seasoned veterans.
Some producers on Galactic Racer had never worked in games before joining the project. “Our young developers are often smarter and more effective than I was at their age,” Webster praised. He observed that senior developers sometimes prefer working with equally senior colleagues who require minimal guidance, which can stifle mentorship.
By contrast, nurturing younger staff energizes the whole team. The studio hopes to formalize an internship program in the future, though they remain pre‑revenue and cautious about the costs associated with talent development.
Looking back to a period five or six years ago when the industry was flush with capital, Webster recalled how many successful teams received funding to spin off their own studios, only to discover the reality was far tougher than anticipated. He lamented the lingering myth of the “single creative visionary” as “bullshit,” insisting that games are inherently collaborative endeavors.
“Unless you’re a solo developer, you need a team of individuals working together,” he asserted. As for Fuse’s roadmap beyond Galactic Racer, Webster admits the future is still being charted.
The launch is just the first step, and the studio remains open to exploring new opportunities and partnerships. “Independent developers today must stay flexible and adaptable,” he concluded.
"We have ideas about where we want to go, but we’ll let the market and our own growth dictate the next chapter."