Matt Webster’s career once seemed destined to stay within the walls of Electronic Arts. He started at the company in 1990 and, after nearly twenty years, helped build the Criterion studio that produced the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises before EA acquired it in 2004.
In early 2023, however, Webster teamed up with former Criterion colleagues Steve Uphill, Pete Lake, Andrei Shires and Alan McDairmant to launch an independent UK studio called Fuse Games. Just three and a half years later the fledgling team is poised to ship its debut title, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, under the banner of the newly autonomous publisher Secret Mode.
Galactic Racer arrives roughly 24 years after the last Star Wars‑themed racing game, 2002’s Racer Revenge, and it does so at a time when the racing genre has generally slipped out of the mainstream spotlight. Amazon recently walked away from a publishing agreement with Maverick Games for its upcoming driving title Clutch, with Amazon Games head Jeff Gattis remarking that the project didn’t fit the market. Meanwhile, Criterion itself has shifted focus from pure racing to the Battlefield franchise. Despite these signals, Webster remains convinced there is still a viable audience for a Star Wars racing experience.
“We clearly think there’s an audience for a Star Wars racing game,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “We’re not the only ones who feel that, and the response we get from our videos and articles suggests we’re not alone.” He points out that video‑game genres tend to be cyclical.
After a period dominated by shooters, other types inevitably resurface. “As more people play games, even the tiniest niches find a bigger audience,” Webster says.
He believes players are hungry for "fun, interesting, compelling new experiences that they haven’t seen before," and he feels Galactic Racer delivers exactly that. The studio’s vision is to craft something fresh, blending arcade‑style immediacy with imaginative, physics‑defying tracks that go beyond conventional asphalt. “We wanted to embrace the instant gratification of an arcade racer while also exploring what’s possible when you’re not limited by tyres and tarmac,” he explains. “One of our courses climbs the side of an active volcano – it feels like a roller‑coaster at times.” Beyond the visual spectacle, Galactic Racer aims to upend long‑standing genre conventions.
Traditional racing games have relied on a car‑collection model for decades, a formula Webster wants to discard. He suggests borrowing mechanics from other genres, especially roguelikes, to inject meaningful consequences into each run. “In most racers you have a rewind button, which erases failure.
We wanted to bring consequence back and make it matter,” he notes. The game’s design draws inspiration from titles such as Hades, Returnal and Slay the Spire—games built around infinite replayability. By marrying that loop with racing, Fuse believes they’ve found a “match made in heaven,” because racing inherently thrives on repeated attempts and mastery.
Consequences manifest through a crash system. If a player crashes too often, they are sent back to the start, but they retain a portion of meta‑progress that makes the next attempt slightly stronger.
This creates tension: “When you’re on your last crash and the system is critical, you literally lean forward and start weighing the risk you’re taking.” It’s a deliberate move away from the hand‑holding that has become common in AAA titles, and Webster acknowledges the need to stand out in an increasingly crowded release calendar, especially with heavyweight titles like GTA 6 slated for November 19. Galactic Racer is set to launch on October 6, giving it a respectable runway before the biggest releases of the year, yet still landing amid a busy September‑October window that has historically been referred to as “murderers’ row.” Webster remains optimistic, tempered by realism.
“Good games will find a way,” he says, echoing a mantra he’s heard throughout his long career. He reflects on past industry layoffs, noting that strong teams produce great games, and great games attract audiences. He also observes a broader industry trend toward risk aversion, which he believes opens opportunities for studios willing to take calculated bets. “If you’re unwilling to risk, you limit yourself,” he warns.
Funding, however, has been a hurdle for Fuse. Starting an independent studio in 2023 felt “brave” to many observers, especially after Webster spent three decades inside EA’s insulated environment.
He emphasizes core principles that guided the studio: assembling a talented team, sharpening a creative vision, and maintaining disciplined planning—while accepting that any plan will be imperfect and must be iterated upon. Engaged, motivated talent, he argues, is the engine behind any successful project.
Fuse’s team is deliberately lean for a title of AAA ambition—about 75 people. Rather than inflating and deflating staff numbers, the studio relies heavily on external development partners to fill gaps. This hybrid model blends transactional outsourcing for asset creation with deeper co‑development relationships where external studios attend daily stand‑ups, share Slack channels, and contribute directly to the codebase.
Webster highlights the UK’s mature game‑development ecosystem as especially conducive to such collaboration, noting that today’s studios are eager to work across multiple projects, keeping their staff fresh and enthusiastic. From Webster’s perspective, this approach proves that a AAA‑scale game can be built on a sustainable budget when a small, permanent core team is augmented by trusted partners who share the same values.
The rapid development timeline of Galactic Racer—just three and a half years from Fuse’s founding to a near‑ready product built on Unreal Engine 5—demonstrates the model’s viability. Another notable aspect of Fuse’s strategy is its emphasis on young talent. While the studio includes veterans from Criterion, many of its developers are newcomers; one producer had never worked in games before joining the project. Webster praises this fresh perspective, saying the younger crew often outperforms more seasoned hires in creativity and efficiency.
He argues that senior developers sometimes prefer working with peers who require minimal guidance, which can stifle mentorship. By deliberately nurturing junior staff, Fuse hopes to cultivate a pipeline of future leaders.
An intern program is on the horizon, though the studio remains 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 recalls how many successful teams received funding to spin off their own studios, only to discover the challenges of independent operation. He criticizes the industry’s lingering fixation on the “lone creative visionary,” calling it “bullshit.” In reality, games are collaborative endeavors, and success stems from strong teams rather than singular geniuses. As for Fuse’s future beyond Galactic Racer, Webster admits plans are still fluid.
The launch will be just the beginning, and the studio remains open to exploring new opportunities and ideas. Flexibility and adaptability, he says, are essential for independent developers navigating today’s market. In sum, Matt Webster believes that even as racing games have faded from the limelight, a well‑crafted Star Wars racer can capture a growing audience hungry for novel, replay‑rich experiences. By combining arcade thrills, roguelike consequences, a lean‑core‑plus‑partner development model, and a fresh wave of young talent, Fuse Games aims to prove that a small independent studio can deliver a AAA‑level title that stands out in a crowded calendar and, ultimately, finds its own niche in the ever‑expanding world of video games.