The former producer of GTA V Online has founded a new company and is now working on a game called Everywhere.
Who is Leslie Benzies? Every GTA fan has surely played a game developed by Benzies. The former president of RockStar North has been involved with the GTA series since 2001 and has produced it for over 10 years.
Leslie’s game portfolio includes:
- GTA III to V including the DLCs and spin-offs
- Manhunt
- L.A. Noire
- Red Dead Redemption
- Max Payne 3
Leslie left RockStar North in 2016 due to a legal dispute with the parent company TakeTwo Interactive over $150 million, which ended in a settlement between the two parties.
Two years later, in 2018, he announced that he has founded a new company called “Build a Rocket Boy Games”. The developer has offices in Budapest and Edinburgh and over 130 employees, including former developers of GTA V such as
- programmer Colin Entwistle
- Lead Cinematics Animator Felipe Busquets
- Music Director Craig Conner
- Audio Director Matthew Smith
Competing game to GTA?
What is the GTA veteran working on? The first game the studio is working on is called “Everywhere”. According to Benzies, it will be a “massive open-world game”:
Everywhere will have many traditional gameplay mechanics, but we want to bring something more, something that draws its inspiration from, well, “everywhere”.
Players are getting smarter and demanding more from their games. And we want players to have real freedom to live in our world the way they want. We want to offer a wide variety of modes and styles that not only tell our stories. They should allow players to live out the identities and adventures they want to explore the most.
Leslie Benzies to VentureBeat
Additionally, Benzies explained that Everywhere is a long-term vision. It has the potential “to develop and grow forever”. This sounds suspiciously like a games-as-a-service game.
According to Benzies, Everywhere is however “very different” compared to GTA. So there will probably not be a direct competitor to RockStar’s action game.
Who has invested in Benzies’ company? For his endeavor, Benzies has brought in various investors in recent years. Among them are cryptocurrency investors Galaxy Interactive, Makers, and the publisher Netease, which is known for operating World of Warcraft in China.
So far, Benzies has raised about $42 million for his company. This is approximately the pure development costs of games like Halo 2 or Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.
While Benzies and his team are working on their new game, several other developers have also founded their own studio. The former head of Blizzard is now at the helm of Dreamhaven.
