GTA producer’s AAA game MindsEye will launch inside his MMO Everywhere

Leith, a port town in the Scottish city of Edinburgh is just outside of Edinburgh. And clinging to the edge of Leith — surrounded by towering dockyards, huge new developments of apartment blocks, and a tangle of fenced-off roadworks as the tracks of a new tram system are laid — is a building that used to be a casino. A new type of construction venture is being undertaken inside. The man who used to get Grand Theft Auto games made is realizing his own vision of gaming’s future.

The man is Leslie Benzies, once Rockstar Games’ production supremo at its core Rockstar North studio in Edinburgh. Together with Sam and Dan Houser, they formed the triumvirate responsible for the GTA game development up until their initial version. Grand Theft Auto 5And Grand Theft Auto Online. After a bitter and tense split with the Housers that ended in Rockstar being sued by Benzies for unpaid royalties, he opened this studio now known as Build A Rocket Boy.

Build A Rocket Boy, based in Leith and in nearby studios in Budapest, Montpellier, is creating an ambitious online world that’s open to all. All Over the World. It is an innovative, casual, massively multiplayer, futuristic game that combines shooting and racing. It also includes game-making tools, which Benzies believes will make it the next. RobloxNot just a gaming platform, but also a place where users can create, publish, and interact with their content.

That’s not all Build A Rocket Boy is building, though. Surprise! The studio also makes MindsEye, which it describes as “an original triple-A action-adventure game.” MindsEyeThe game features real visuals and performance-captured cutscenes. It also has a plot about a conspiracy and driving, as well as shooting gameplay, according to its trailer. It looks like Grand Theft Auto’s next installment, with an episodic schedule which will allow each installment to have a different style. The game will only be released within its own borders. All Over the World.

It’s a head-spinning concept, although it has a relevant precedent. Benzies claimed the Housers did not have any interest in the creation of the concept. Grand Theft Auto Online and left him to it, but were then affronted when he put his own name in pride of place in the game’s credits. GTA Online Launched within GTA 5., and eventually — after Benzies’ enforced departure — became a massive, persistent world that arguably eclipsed and sustained its parent game. Now Benzies (whose title at Build A Rocket Boy is game director) has flipped the script, and he’s launching the single-player game inside the online one.

Adam Whiting is an enthusiast assistant game director who walks Polygon (and other assembled journalists) through a demo of Leith Studio’s popular videogame. All Over the World. Studio insists that the beta version of the game will be available for PC users this year. Console versions are expected to follow later. It’s easy enough to believe; it seems slick, and stable enough. Bright and vibrant, the world has a lot of great sci-fi architecture (Utropia), and large wilderness areas (forests, lava canyons, etc.) that you can explore. This art style is slightly more sophisticated and realist. Fortnite.

The hubs in Utropia probably give the clearest idea of what you’ll actually be doing here: There’s a Combat District, where you can access cheerfully chaotic, QuakeLaser Deathmatches in a futuristic setting; Racing District to start arcade racing with futuristic buggies. Entertainment District: Access curated player creations. MindsEyeThe Collection allows you to customize, build and browse. Another key concept is Portals, which can be placed anywhere and will jump your character to any experience or space — they’re essentially Everywhere’sVersion of hyperlinks

All Over the World seems like a pleasant place to be, although Build A Rocket Boy’s mission to create a blank slate for players to draw on, rather than a distinctive game in its own right, has left the art style looking rather bland. The core gameplay is also basic and doesn’t seem to be that fun, which is worrying. ARCadia is a tool players can use without coding to make game content. Players have access to a graphical interface that lets them create assets and establish game logic. It seemed simple but relatively powerful, not unlike Sony’s Your DreamsIt was demonstrated to us how the tool could be used in combat, platforming, puzzles, as well as a boss battle. Portal-style lab-like environment.

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

MindsEyeIt looks quite different and is less polished. A dialogue clip was shown and a brief on-foot tour of the interior were provided. Even though it’s a more familiar proposition than All over the placeIt also raises many other questions and the studio is unsure about the answers. Is it going to be available for sale? What extent will it interoperate with? All Over the World’s tools, and can players expect to be able to craft their own games on this level? Assets from MindsEyeThe will be readily available for you to use in All Over the WorldAfter release, creator.

Benzies let slip the following information during a Q&A session with journalists MindsEyeThe episodes will be distributed episodically and may differ from one another; however, the second episode will likely be multi-player.

“They’re connected, but not,” he says. “So there’s one overarching story for the whole thing, but they take place in lots of different time periods and parts of the universe. All Over the WorldThis is for gamers MindsEyeThis is quite a bit for us. It is for our egos. And what we don’t want for this company is to turn into a sequel company… because just from experience, building the same thing bigger and better all the time is — you know, it’s exciting. However, you must engage your team. You need to have new gameplay for them, and new gameplay for players.”

Let’s not forget the question of how will players finance this. To put it another way: What will the players pay for? All Over the World MindsEye Make money!

“Don’t know. But we know. But we’re not telling anyone,” Benzies jokes at the Q&A. A trim, middle-aged man with dark hair and a soft Scottish accent, he comes across as relaxed and thoughtful — far from the flamboyant hardcase one might have expected to run things at Rockstar. The business model of Build A Rocket Boy is vaguely described. All Over the WorldAnd MindsEye as “free-to-play premium;” it seems that All Over the WorldThe service is free and includes a market for customizing. MindsEye will be sold, but the studio wouldn’t outright say so. The currency that can be used to trade player creations will definitely be free. It’s called ARCs for complete creations and Stamps for single assets. Building A Rocket Boy also hopes to create a marketplace for advertising and marketing within the game. All Over the WorldSimilar to the ones that are so profitable for FortniteAnd Roblox.

There are two possible options: NFTs or Pay-to Win.

“We’re highly opposed to any form of pay-to-win,” Whiting says. “But we think maybe pay-to-look-cool is probably the best place to be.”

All Over the World’s initial trailer last year caused widespread suspicion that it would be some kind of blockchain game — a fad in game investment at the time — but this gets dismissed by chief development officer Mick Hocking.

“We don’t need it. That’s the basic point,” he says. “The blockchain and NFTs are useful when you want to take content outside of your walled garden and go on to an exchange or to go between products. We don’t need that — everything is within our world.”

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

Image: Rocket Boy Build

When confronted by another investment trend in 2022, Benzies responds with a scowl: The metaverse. Imagine it. All Over the World Being pitched as one and fitting the description in certain ways. However, Benzies spits on the term.

“We don’t really call ourselves a metaverse. And I think if you were to — I think games have been metaverses for a long time, if that’s the definition. We try and shy away from it,” he says. He goes on to talk about a metaverse-like goal. All Over the WorldAs a universal online entertainment option and social network. “To me, the word ‘game,’ it’s kind of a bit underwhelming for what this, what we’re all here doing, has become.” He talks of a scenario where someone is juggling watching TV, chatting to friends, and playing games simultaneously. “One of the thoughts with this is, let’s just pull that all in one place, so you’re not jumping around multiple pieces of hardware. Like the phone. You know, we would speak on the phone and now, on that, we’re doing everything.”

Benzies and Hocking are much less shy of 2023’s tech controversy du jour: AI. Though they have no concrete plans yet, they’re enthusiastic about AI as a potentially useful tool for both content moderation and content creation.

“It’s mind-blowing, what’s possible,” Benzies says. “I didn’t think that we had the tech to do some of the stuff that is now happening. So if that technology can be leveraged, especially in the area of cybersecurity. [user-generated content] tools, to, you know, just talk to it: ‘I want this. Build it.’ Absolutely! I’m a huge fan of tools to make things easy. There’s nothing worse than reinventing the wheel with video games. Let’s not bother; let’s do the fun stuff. I don’t see it as taking jobs away, I think it allows you to be more creative.”

“They’re tools, at the end of the day,” Hocking says. “And you need creative people to use the tools in a full way to make content still. And I think once we can put them in the hands of players, they’ll do incredible things.”

The Build A Rocket Boy team is very open and honest about its goals All Over the World To be. As Whiting says: “For a lot of people now, their first gaming experience is MinecraftYou can also call it: Roblox: innately creative, expressive games… I think, ultimately, they need to graduate on to something that’s a bit more grown-up, something that’s a bit more robust, something that’s a bit more cool.”

Image: Rocket Boy Build

The problem for the studio is the fact that there are few truly innovative launches of gaming-generated content platforms. Moreover, those who have achieved the level of success that Benzies aspires have tended not to be based on other reasons to exist. Your DreamsThis is a niche vanity project. Microsoft’s Project SparkIs already lost. Minecraft is, it’s easy to forget, a minimalist survival game first, content-creation game second. RobloxOver 15 years, a small kernel grew slowly. FortniteIt has evolved over the years from being a co-op gaming platform to a battle royale and then to a youth marketing arena. The Unreal Editor is now entering the UGC arena, which could be the greatest threat All Over the World faces).

Is it possible to engineer these items at large scale from scratch and with purpose? My doubts are valid, but so is my suspicion that All Over the Worldcan be enough of a personality to make a difference in a neighborhood. Perhaps that’s what MindsEyeIts true nature will reveal itself when that happens. Benzies will be there when it finally reveals its true form. Grand Theft Auto Online — perhaps the most successful Trojan horse in the history of gaming — will have done his great smuggling trick again.