{"id":2006735,"date":"2026-06-23T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2006735"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:00:14","slug":"its-like-lightning-in-a-bottle-star-wars-galactic-racer-devs-spill-the-beans-on-why-its-so-hard-to-make-a-game-as-good-as-burnout-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2006735","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;It&#8217;s like lightning in a bottle&#8221; &#8211; Star Wars Galactic Racer devs spill the beans on why it&#8217;s so hard to make a game as good as Burnout Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">&#8220;It&#8217;s like lightning in a bottle&#8221; &#8211; Star Wars Galactic Racer devs spill the beans on why it&#8217;s so hard to make a game as good as Burnout Paradise<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;We were making it up as we went along.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/Star-Wars-Galactic-Racer-ship-getting-ready-for-a-race.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Star Wars Galactic Racer ship getting ready for a race\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"Star-Wars-Galactic-Racer-ship-getting-ready-for-a-race.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Fuse Games<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Connor Makar avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"tAtwiaBo_400x400.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"374\" height=\"374\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/connor-makar\">Connor Makar<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Staff Writer<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-06-23T15:00:14+00:00\">June 23, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/burnout-paradise-galactic-racer-interview-lightning-in-a-bottle?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          8 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"f6d16961-582d-45d3-a765-6e522797625d\" data-name=\"Burnout Paradise\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Burnout Paradise\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Burnout Paradise\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Burnout Paradise\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Burnout Paradise\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Burnout Paradise\" title=\"Follow Burnout Paradise\"><br \/>\n  Follow Burnout Paradise<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/burnout-paradise-is-gaming-perfection\">There are a rare few racing games as good as Burnout Paradise<\/a>. You could argue there <em>aren&#8217;t<\/em> any, though the competition for the number one spot is fierce. The game is such a classic it begs the question: Why hasn&#8217;t anyone been able to make a racer quite as good since? Only a few people on this planet could answer such a question.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, at Summer Game Fest earlier this month, two such people were present. Founder and CEO of Fuse Games Matt Webster, alongside creative director Kieran Crimmins, who are currently hard at work on Star Wars: Galactic Racer. With both having worked at Criterion when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/burnout-paradise\">Burnout Paradise<\/a> was created, they took some time to reminisce about the game and speak about why it&#8217;s so good, and how Fuse Games is trying to strike gold twice.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Star Wars: Galactic Racer - Official Release Date Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bHymTubJegw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bHymTubJegw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Star Wars: Galactic Racer &#8211; Official Release Date Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s the Star Wars: Galactic Racer release date trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bHymTubJegw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like lightning in a bottle sometimes,&#8221; Webster told Eurogamer. He pointed to the desire of the Burnout Paradise team to take its arcade racer experience and morph it into an open-world experience. Seeing as there wasn&#8217;t really any game doing that at the time, it proved a wonderful opportunity for them to be creative.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were making it up as we went along,&#8221; Webster said. &#8220;The online multiplayer in Burnout Paradise &#8211; you were just dicking about in a car, not playing the game <em>was<\/em> the game! Now you&#8217;ve got <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/forza-horizon-6\">Forza Horizon 6<\/a>, which does that to a wonderful degree. Like beautifully, wonderfully creative, but ultimately what you&#8217;re doing is a social driving experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Paradise was a leap forward in loads of ways, so you couldn&#8217;t just remake that and have the same cultural impact and give people the same experiences,&#8221; Crimmins adds. &#8220;So the answer to that is, people try all the time. Everyone tries to make the best game they can possibly make, and the most interesting game, but it is like catching lightning in a bottle. The only way you can get there is to try and do something new, try and do something innovative, and have the player experience at the heart of what you&#8217;re doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Catching lightning in a bottle is, as the idiom goes, impossibly hard. Yet Webster, Crimmins, and their co-workers at Fuse are indeed trying to do so again with Galactic Racer. There&#8217;s a desire to push the genre forward again, with Webster believing he knows what the missing piece is in the genre right now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Consequence is missing,&#8221; he said &#8220;It&#8217;s tough to have consequence when you&#8217;ve got a rewind button, right? So, consequences are missing. How do we bring consequence into the structure? How do we have not just the consequence of crashing, but consequence in decision making? Take your build. What are you trying to do here?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we want to move the genre forward, and so there are similarities with Paradise in that regard, in terms of how we are trying to just invent new cool stuff, that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to do here. It just happens to be inside a Star Wars racing game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Crimmins, on the importance of consequence, pointed to the &#8220;levels of depth&#8221; present in Galactic Racer as evidence of their intent: &#8220;It&#8217;s why we&#8217;ve got the amount of vehicles that we&#8217;ve got from the Star Wars universe, like having four vehicles larger than just cars, because we know that we need to take a leap forward to really be a transformative game in the industry. I really think that Star Wars: Galactic Racer has the potential to be that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To this, Webster cheerfully replied: &#8220;Yeah, it&#8217;s being brave, I think!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve got more on Galactic Racer coming soon on Eurogamer, so if this chatter about living up to Burnout Paradise has you keen, then keep an eye out for more from this duo.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/burnout-paradise-is-gaming-perfection\">There are a rare few racing games as good as Burnout Paradise<\/a>. You could argue there <em>aren&#8217;t<\/em> any, though the competition for the number one spot is fierce. The game is such a classic it begs the question: Why hasn&#8217;t anyone been able to make a racer quite as good since? Only a few people on this planet could answer such a question.<\/p>\n<p>Thankfully, at Summer Game Fest earlier this month, two such people were present. Founder and CEO of Fuse Games Matt Webster, alongside creative director Kieran Crimmins, who are currently hard at work on Star Wars: Galactic Racer. With both having worked at Criterion when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/burnout-paradise\">Burnout Paradise<\/a> was created, they took some time to reminisce about the game and speak about why it&#8217;s so good, and how Fuse Games is trying to strike gold twice.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Star Wars: Galactic Racer - Official Release Date Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bHymTubJegw?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bHymTubJegw\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Star Wars: Galactic Racer &#8211; Official Release Date Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s the Star Wars: Galactic Racer release date trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bHymTubJegw\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like lightning in a bottle sometimes,&#8221; Webster told Eurogamer. He pointed to the desire of the Burnout Paradise team to take its arcade racer experience and morph it into an open-world experience. Seeing as there wasn&#8217;t really any game doing that at the time, it proved a wonderful opportunity for them to be creative.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were making it up as we went along,&#8221; Webster said. &#8220;The online multiplayer in Burnout Paradise &#8211; you were just dicking about in a car, not playing the game <em>was<\/em> the game! Now you&#8217;ve got <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/forza-horizon-6\">Forza Horizon 6<\/a>, which does that to a wonderful degree. Like beautifully, wonderfully creative, but ultimately what you&#8217;re doing is a social driving experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Paradise was a leap forward in loads of ways, so you couldn&#8217;t just remake that and have the same cultural impact and give people the same experiences,&#8221; Crimmins adds. &#8220;So the answer to that is, people try all the time. Everyone tries to make the best game they can possibly make, and the most interesting game, but it is like catching lightning in a bottle. The only way you can get there is to try and do something new, try and do something innovative, and have the player experience at the heart of what you&#8217;re doing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Catching lightning in a bottle is, as the idiom goes, impossibly hard. Yet Webster, Crimmins, and their co-workers at Fuse are indeed trying to do so again with Galactic Racer. There&#8217;s a desire to push the genre forward again, with Webster believing he knows what the missing piece is in the genre right now.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Consequence is missing,&#8221; he said &#8220;It&#8217;s tough to have consequence when you&#8217;ve got a rewind button, right? So, consequences are missing. How do we bring consequence into the structure? How do we have not just the consequence of crashing, but consequence in decision making? Take your build. What are you trying to do here?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"2\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we want to move the genre forward, and so there are similarities with Paradise in that regard, in terms of how we are trying to just invent new cool stuff, that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to do here. It just happens to be inside a Star Wars racing game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Crimmins, on the importance of consequence, pointed to the &#8220;levels of depth&#8221; present in Galactic Racer as evidence of their intent: &#8220;It&#8217;s why we&#8217;ve got the amount of vehicles that we&#8217;ve got from the Star Wars universe, like having four vehicles larger than just cars, because we know that we need to take a leap forward to really be a transformative game in the industry. I really think that Star Wars: Galactic Racer has the potential to be that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To this, Webster cheerfully replied: &#8220;Yeah, it&#8217;s being brave, I think!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve got more on Galactic Racer coming soon on Eurogamer, so if this chatter about living up to Burnout Paradise has you keen, then keep an eye out for more from this duo.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News &#8220;It&#8217;s like lightning in a bottle&#8221; &#8211; Star Wars Galactic Racer devs spill the beans on why it&#8217;s so hard to make a game as good as Burnout Paradise &#8220;We were making it up as we went along.&#8221; Image credit: Fuse Games News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on June 23, 2026 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-2006735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2006735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2006735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2006735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2006735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2006735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2006735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}