A group of developers and executives who left EA subsidiary Criterion Games after the release of Need for Speed Unbound last December have formed Fuse Games, a new Guildford-based studio that will develop a AAA game for PC and console platforms as its first project. The studio’s 17-strong team also includes former developers from IO Interactive, Playground Games, and other famous studios.

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Following the release of Need for Speed Unbound in December last year, Matt Webster (VP and GM of Criterion), Pete Lake (executive producer), Andrei Shires (senior technical director), Alan McDairmant (head of studio development), and Steve Uphill (head of content) all left Criterion Games to “explore new opportunities outside of EA.” The group has now returned with their new “Fuse Games” studio, and all five have assumed roles at the company that are similar to their previous Criterion positions.

The team is attempting to set up shop close to their old studio in Guildford, UK, and will adopt a hybrid working approach for its 17-strong team that it plans to expand further. Its first project will be a AAA game for PC and console platforms, though the studio has not yet decided on a genre for the game:

Even our recent history spans a few things. Obviously arcade racers and open world racers are what we know very deeply. But we have played around in other genres over the years, including Battlefront, Battlefield… VR. We know what we are good at, and that spans a broad range of things now. Once we select our genre, we want to lead that genre.

We’ve been fortunate enough to work on games that have spanned the whole gamut. We know what it’s like to have a small group spinning up something new, to have multiple hundreds of people on a huge development. We will end up being somewhere in-between [in terms of team size].

With Criterion’s workplace environment receiving multiple awards during their tenure, the group plan to carry their lessons at the company forward while still looking to (responsibly) create full-sized game projects in rapid succession:

Our aim is to get a game out there as quickly and as healthily as we can. If games take two or three years to make, then there’s only a limited number we can make in our lifespan. If we keep making five to seven-year opuses, we can only make a few. And [we] want to make as many as [we] can.

While there are no further details available about Fuse Games‘ upcoming project, the team’s Criterion swan song Need for Speed Unbound is set to receive a massive expansion on March 21, the details of which can be found here.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz