Secret Mode's British success story in a game industry that's crumbling around them

In an otherwise difficult time for the industry, several studios and publishers have begun to find their niche.

British publisher Secret Mode is one such example. A publisher who has, over the last couple of years, carved out a niche for itself.

The publisher had originally been founded as part of the larger Sumo Group in 2020, and had developed a solid reputation in the industry for its work on unique and creative indie games: A Little to the Left, Still Wakes the Deep, Parcel Corps and more.

But the newfound freedom gained since going independent in 2025 has allowed the publisher to take to new heights, peaking with this month's Star Wars: Galactic Racer.

At Gamescom, Radio Times Gaming sat down with the team to chat about their work, and more imminently, a new update to one of their more streamer-focused games, Chained Together, which has just launched a new 2v2 mode.

"Chained Together was, I guess we call it friendslop now, or chaotic co-op, or a 'rage bait' game. Chained Together was one of the first, right?

"It's one of the first to kind of do that, and kind of build that genre, and we fully support that.

"As part of our roadmap going forward, one of the main considerations that we look for is, number one: is this streamable? Is this YouTube friendly? Is this going to give them a strong reason to want to replay and recapture the game?"

The 2v2 update is just another step towards achieving that 'streamable' vibe – "We've had some hilarious moments already."

Chained Together also represents another new string to Secret Mode's bow: co-op games.

"It actually started with Escape the Backrooms. We've had a lot of success with Escape the Backrooms as a kind of horror co-op, friendslop type game.

"We built that out from the original developer and had a big roadmap for that, and delivered the 1.0 update and now our recent new map.

"So once Chained Together came towards us, we felt that it was a really good fit, and also knew that the audiences had a huge amount of crossover.

"We're definitely interested in [more co-op]. We're looking to build out that area of the business."

But a less positive side effect of Chained Together and similar games on the industry is that they have inspired a raft of copycat games.

Low-effort, attention grabbing clones of popular titles aiming to make a quick buck – a situation only made worse by improvements in AI.

How does a publisher like Secret Mode continue to compete in a market where any idea can be cheaply cloned before it even reaches the market?

"The industry has changed a lot the last few years. This year alone, I think we've already had 18-20 thousand new games come on Steam, so it's crazy, right?

"But there are a lot of new developers coming through, and new teams and indies that are trying new things, and it's resonating.

"So there are a lot of lessons that we're learning from that, and we deploy the same sort of things ourselves.

"We know that genre and that kind of style of game has resonated already and has got a big following. We've had 12 million players over the years that have played Chained Together, so we're really excited to just kind of keep giving them more content and build on them."

And it's thinking like this that has helped Secret Mode stand out as the wider industry continues to slump around them.

"Secret Mode has definitely felt like a bit of a unicorn in the current market. We've had some great successes. We've had some really good publishing opportunities.

"We've had a lot of, I wouldn't say luck, but there have been some favourable moments like the Backrooms film being released this year has helped Escape the Backrooms immensely for our console launch.

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"We're always looking at the data and the trends of the market, and trying to intelligently guess where things and moving, and that's just our strategy.

"And also working with some great developers across the whole industry and kind of elevating them and giving them as much support as possible.

"So again, it comes back to this idea of the market is changing and we all need to adapt to that."

And this is very much just the start for Secret Mode – start as you mean to go on.

"We expect to sign a lot more games. We've got Chained Together and Escape the Backrooms and that kind of co-op friendslop genre, so we're going to be looking to extend that out.

"Plus, we're excited for smaller indies as well. We're looking to work with more indies. There are more titles coming through, and then also the bigger things too. Galactic Racer is the biggest thing that we're doing this year.

"We've got a really wide array of things, and I think that strategy has been working well for us so far. We know we've got the expertise to help in different areas, and we divide our team in that way too."

Star Wars: Galactic Racer releases on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 6 October.

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