Matt Webster’s career once seemed destined to stay within the walls of Electronic Arts. He started at the company in 1990 and spent nearly twenty years contributing to the Burnout and Need for Speed franchises through Criterion, the studio EA acquired in 2004.
In early 2023, however, Webster, together with former Criterion colleagues Steve Uphill, Pete Lake, Andrei Shires and Alan McDairmant, decided to leave the corporate giant and launch an independent UK studio called Fuse Games. Three and a half years later the fledgling studio is preparing 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 lost much of its mainstream momentum. Amazon recently cancelled a publishing agreement with Maverick Games for a new driving title called Clutch, with Amazon Games head Jeff Gattis explaining that the market simply didn’t have room for another racer.
Meanwhile Criterion itself has shifted focus away from cars and onto the Battlefield franchise. Despite these signals, Webster remains convinced that a demand exists. “We clearly see an audience for a Star Wars racing game,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “Our community of viewers and readers tells us we’re not the only ones who think that.” He argues that video‑game genres are cyclical.
“We went through a period where shooters dominated everything, but that’s not the whole story. As more people play games, even the tiniest niches can find a sizable audience.” According to Webster, players are hungry for “fun, interesting, compelling new experiences they haven’t seen before,” and he believes Galactic Racer delivers exactly that. Fuse set out to capture the instant‑gratification feel of classic arcade racers while also asking, “What can we do when we’re no longer bound by tyres and tarmac?” The answer, he says, is tracks that climb the sides of active volcanoes, courses that feel like roller‑coasters, and other over‑the‑top environments that would be impossible in a realistic simulation.
Yet the ambition goes deeper than visual spectacle. Webster wants to upend long‑standing racing conventions, especially the static car‑collection model that has persisted for two decades. “Let’s rip that up and steal ideas from other genres,” he declares.
One of those borrowed ideas is the notion of consequence. In many modern racers, a rewind button erases mistakes, making crashes feel inconsequential.
Galactic Racer re‑introduces risk: crashing too often sends you back to the start, though you retain some meta‑progression that makes your next attempt slightly stronger. “When you’re on your last crash and the system is critical, you actually feel the tension,” Webster explains.
This design philosophy draws inspiration from roguelikes such as Hades, Returnal and Slay the Spire—games built around infinite replayability. "Racing thrives on replayability, so marrying it with roguelike mechanics feels like a match made in heaven," he adds. The game’s release window also reflects strategic thinking.
Galactic Racer is slated for October 6, a comfortable gap before the highly anticipated GTA 6 launch on November 19, yet close enough to ride the wave of other major releases like Control: Resonance and Silent Hill: Townfall on September 24. Webster acknowledges the crowded calendar but points out that the industry has weathered even busier pre‑Christmas schedules in the past. “October used to be called ‘Murderer’s Row’ because it was packed with titles,” he recalls, emphasizing that Fuse approaches the market with a “healthy sense of confidence” tempered by realism. When asked about the wave of layoffs sweeping the sector, Webster reflects on his long tenure.
He remembers a similar contraction fifteen years ago and notes a pattern: great teams make great games, and great games find their audience. He warns that today’s risk‑averse climate can stifle innovation, but also creates openings for studios willing to take calculated bets. “If you shy away from risk, you limit opportunity,” he says. Funding an independent studio in 2023 has not been easy.
Webster describes the skepticism he faced when announcing Fuse: “People said, ‘You’re brave doing an indie studio now.’” After 32 years at EA, he had to relearn how to build a company from the ground up. His guiding principles became assembling a talented team, sharpening a creative vision, and maintaining disciplined planning—while accepting that any plan is provisional and must be iterated upon.
He stresses that motivated talent is the engine of success; a leader’s job is to engage and inspire that talent. Fuse’s core team is deliberately small—about 75 people—because the studio wants to avoid the typical “grow‑shrink‑grow‑shrink” cycle that plagues many developers. Instead, Fuse relies heavily on external partners to fill capability gaps. This hybrid model ranges from pure outsourcing (transactional asset creation) to deep co‑development, where external studios sit in on stand‑ups, share Slack channels and contribute directly to the codebase.
Webster highlights the UK’s mature game‑development ecosystem as a fertile ground for such collaboration, noting that today’s studios are eager to work across multiple projects, keeping their staff fresh and enthusiastic. According to Webster, this approach proves that a AAA‑scale game—by scope, visual fidelity and ambition—can be delivered on a sustainable budget when a compact core team is augmented by trusted partners who share the same values.
The rapid development timeline of Galactic Racer underscores this point: Fuse was founded in January 2023, and just three and a half years later it has produced a full‑blown UE5 title despite none of the team having prior UE5 experience. "It feels like an achievement, and we’ve done it in a healthy, sustainable way," he says.
Another noteworthy aspect of Fuse’s story is its blend of veteran expertise and fresh blood. While the studio includes several Criterion alumni, many of its developers are younger, and one producer had never worked in games before joining the project. Webster is enthusiastic about this dynamic: “Our young talent is often smarter and more effective than I was at that age.
We’ve seen greater success with them than with some senior hires.” He observes that seasoned developers sometimes prefer to work alongside peers who need little guidance, which can limit mentorship opportunities. By deliberately nurturing younger staff, Fuse creates a culture of mutual growth. Looking ahead, Webster hopes to formalize an internship program to continue feeding the pipeline of emerging talent, though he cautions that the studio is still pre‑revenue. He cites Criterion’s historic intern initiatives as a model and acknowledges the cost and effort required to develop newcomers.
Reflecting on the boom years of roughly five to six years ago, Webster recalls how successful games often spawned spin‑off studios funded by eager investors. Many of those ventures struggled because they underestimated the challenges of building a company from scratch.
He argues that money should have been allocated to strong teams rather than to the myth of a singular “creative visionary.” In his view, that myth is “complete nonsense”—games are collaborative creations, not solo auteur projects. As for Fuse’s next steps, Webster admits the future is still being charted. The launch of Galactic Racer is just the beginning, and the studio remains open to new opportunities and ideas. He emphasizes the need for flexibility and adaptability for independent developers in today’s ever‑changing market.
"We have ideas about where we want to go, but we have to stay agile," he concludes.