Leith is a beautiful port city situated on the edge of the historic Scottish capital of Edinburgh. On the outskirts of Leith, there is a landmark that was once a casino, surrounded by towering shipyards and apartment buildings, and scattered with a messy tramway system.
A new studio formed by GTA5 producers looking to make a game © beyond MC courtesy of Yukensha
Now the building is no longer used as a casino, but as a start-up location for a game studio. Unlike the remoteness of the studio's location, its founders have a lot of origins.
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Its founder was Leslie Benzies, a former R star executive who led the development of the GTA series along with the Houser brothers, known as the Big Three.
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He has been involved in the GTA series since 2001 and has worked on at least 4 GTA games to date, including Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto 5.
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After completing the early release of GTA5 and GTA OL, he had great disagreements and fierce conflicts with the Houser brothers, which eventually led Leslie to sue R Star, claiming that R Star had not paid his royalties and demanded $150 million in damages.
But he failed to get the compensation he expected, and eventually left angrily to set up the new studio, Build A Rocket Boy.
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In fact, looking at the name of this studio, you can see that Leslie is still obsessed with his identity in R Star, and he is also thinking about the wonderful works he created in R Star with his life.
So Leslie embarked on a new journey, with plans to build an ambitious online open-world game called Everywhere. The game has been exhibited in 2022 and is expected to be launched this year, but the exact time is undecided.
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Similar to GTA OL, this is a massively multiplayer game with shooting and racing elements, except that it contains more sci-fi elements.
But Leslie's ambitions go far beyond creating another GTA, and just reaching the heights of GTA OL is not satisfying him, after all, it can be said that he has already achieved such achievements.
He hopes to turn Everywhere into the next Fortnite, Roblox or MC, in general, a platform for users to produce and distribute their own content.
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Everywhere comes with a game maker of its own, and Leslie is already demonstrating what the platform will have in the future, and he's having the studio develop a game that runs inside Everywhere, an original triple-A action-adventure game called MindsEye.
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Judging by the trailer that has already been released, Mindseye has realistic visuals, detailed cutscenes, and even driving, shooter gameplay, and sci-fi elements, in short, it looks very much like what GTA will look like in the future.
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Releasing a triple-A game in an online game? It's a dizzying concept, but it's not without precedent.
In fact, GTA5 is a typical example, GTA OL was first launched in GTA5, but with the gradual update, it has become a huge, dynamic world, and even the offline mode is a little eclipsed, and it is now difficult to say who is attached to whom.
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Leslie simply reversed the script a bit and launched a single-player game in the online game.
This idea is very novel and has aroused a lot of interest, and Everywhere has even received investment from NetEase.
In the presentation, the world is bright and colorful, filled with sci-fi architecture, and includes huge wilderness areas to explore, and the art style overall looks like a more elaborate and realistic Fortnite.
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The hub city of this world is called Utropia, and interestingly, we can tell at a glance that the word is actually a variant of utopia.
In this city, players can do many different types of activities. THERE IS A COMBAT AREA WHERE PLAYERS CAN ENGAGE IN QUAKE-STYLE DEATHMATCHES; There is a racing zone where street racing races can be initiated with off-road vehicles; There is a relaxation area where players can access a selection of player-created content, including the upcoming release of MindsEye.
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Another key concept is the "portal", which can be placed anywhere and allow your character to jump into any space at any time for a new experience, a mechanic that is like a hyperlink in the Everywhere version and reminds me of the Ready Player One movie.
In fact, Leslie wanted to create a blank slate for players to write freely, rather than a well-structured game.
This actually makes the content of this game look quite bland, and the most interesting thing is not the content of the game itself, but the fact that players can use the built-in tools to build the game without programming knowledge, as long as they can use the graphical interface, they can easily make game materials and set up game operation logic.
This tool looks handy and is similar to Sony's Dreams tool. Leslie demonstrated the use of this tool, using it in a Portal-style lab environment to create missions with combat, platforming, puzzles, and boss fights.
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The project "MindsEye" seems easier to understand than "Everywhere", but it raises just as many questions, to what extent was it made with tools inside Everywhere? Is it possible for players to make games of the same size with this tool? How will it be sold after it launches inside Everywhere?
Unfortunately, the studio is now a little vague about these issues, after all, both games are still in production.
Leslie also made a point of selling the issue of fees, introducing the charging method: "We have thought of a brilliant charging method, but we will not tell anyone now." ”
He just vaguely said that Everywhere would be free and MindsEye would ask for payment. Let me guess that the method he was talking about might be to create an in-game currency for players to trade creative content, and players can save enough money to buy MindsEye.
I guess this because, judging by Leslie's vision, it was clear that he wanted to make Everywhere a game advertising marketplace similar to Fortnite and Roblox.
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Of course, Leslie assured everyone that there will be no krypton gold wins and microtransactions in this game.
"I'm strongly against any form of pay-to-win," Leslie said, "but it's acceptable for Krypton Gold to make your image cool, and it's probably the best way to pay." ”
Originally, when the trailer was released last year, there was widespread suspicion that Everywhere would be some kind of blockchain game, after all, it was a fashionable way for the game to pull investment at the time, but now listening to Leslie, at least players who hate microtransactions can be slightly relieved.
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Last year, there was actually another game investment concept that was hot, that is, the metaverse, and Leslie also scoffed at this concept.
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"I think games have long done the function claimed by the metaverse, but they just don't call themselves metaverse." He said.
But he actually described ambitions very similar to the metaverse, saying: "I want to make Everywhere a ubiquitous online entertainment and social space." For me, the word 'game' is a bit too bland for what we're doing here. ”
He describes an ideal scenario: "People can watch TV, chat with friends and play games at the same time, and as long as we put everything in one virtual space, you don't jump between multiple pieces of hardware." ”
Leslie is also critical of the biggest technical controversy of the year, and although he has no specific development plans for artificial intelligence, he also believes that AI has great potential as a powerful tool for content review and creation.
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"It's exciting, anything is possible," Leslie said, "and user-generated content in particular can take advantage of AI, just say, 'I want this, do it,' which is great!" I love tools that make things simple, and there's nothing worse than reinventing the wheel with games. Let's reduce distractions and do more interesting things. I don't think it's going to take jobs, I think it's going to make you more creative. ”
Leslie concluded: "At the end of the day, AI is a tool. I think once I get it into the hands of the players, there will definitely be some incredible outputs. ”
Closer to home, at this stage, Build A Rocket Boy is open about what it wants Everywhere to be. As Leslie puts it, "For a lot of people these days, their first gaming experience is Minecraft or Roblox, which are naturally creative, expressive... I think that, ultimately, they need to graduate from something more mature, stronger, cooler. ”
epilogue
It's a long way off, and I don't think it's going to be an easy one, as very few people have actually successfully launched user-generated content platforms in games.
Sony's Dreams are now only maintaining a superficial boom, and Microsoft's Project Spark has been completely forgotten.
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It's easy to forget the fact that Minecraft was a minimalist survival game first and foremost, and only then grew into a content creation game. Roblox has grown from a tiny core gameplay over the course of 15 years. Fortnite wasn't even a battle royale game, but a cooperative game, and it's only now transformed into a marketing metaverse for teenagers.
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I doubt that the same effect can be achieved when you aim at the whole in the first place? If built as a platform from the start, Everywhere may not have enough personality and merit to attract players to build a community around it.
Maybe engaging players is what MindsEye is all about? Just like the relationship between GTA5 and GTA OL back then? If it does, then Leslie, one of the creators of the most successful online game in gaming history, could do wonders again, so let's wait and see.