Former GTA Producer’s Ambitious Open World Game Everywhere Moved to Unreal Engine
Build a Rocket Boy, created by former Rockstar North President Leslie Benzies, no longer uses Amazon’s Lumberyard engine for its debut project. An open-world game called Everywhere was decided to be transferred to the Unreal Engine.
“We are very encouraged that we will use this powerful technology to create amazing new worlds, and actively recruit employees of all specialties in Edinburgh and Budapest”, – told the authors. The reasons for the decision were not reported.
Currently, there are about fifty vacancies on the studio’s website. The team has already managed to attract about 150 specialists, including those who worked on Grand Theft Auto V – programmer Colin Entwistle, lead animator of cinematic scenes Felipe Busquets, sound engineer Craig Conner, lead sound designer Will Will Morton and animation director Mondo Ghulam.
Eve: Valkyrie’s narrative designer, Andrew Robinson, has been appointed as the lead designer for the project, and Thomas Woode of Gameloft is the artistic director. Senior Environment Artist is Liz Hubley of Call of Duty. The team also includes former employees of Crytek, Ubisoft Reflections, DICE, Rare, and Ninja Theory. You can find out more about the composition of the studio in a note on VGC (information obtained from open profiles of specialists).
Benzies has produced nearly every Rockstar Games title since 2001: all parts and offshoots of Grand Theft Auto since Grand Theft Auto III, the Manhunt dilogy, LA Noire, May Payne 3, and Red Dead Redemption (he also worked on it as lead designer ). In 2016, he left Rockstar Games after a royalties scandal and a $ 150 million lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive (all differences were settled in 2019). In 2017, he founded his own studio and announced the development of the first game. In September this year, it became known that Build a Rocket Boy received $ 42 million from several investors, including the Chinese NetEase.
There are practically no details about the game itself. According to the description on the official website, Everywhere takes place in the near future, and the story touches on the moral aspect of the use of technology. “Some people want technology to serve only them. Others are eager to help all people. Will we gaze at the stars or stare at our feet? Will we be inspired or will we live in fear? In the hearts of men and women, there is a war between good and evil. Everything changes. And it cannot be stopped. “
Benzies noted that Everywhere is unlike any of his past projects. “Everywhere uses a lot of traditional mechanics, but we strive for something bigger and get inspiration from literally everywhere,” he said in a 2017 interview with VentureBeat . – Players get smarter and start demanding more from games. We want to let them live in our worlds truly free. “
