Former Rockstar North president secures $42m for his new game

(Image credit: Build a Rocket Boy)

Former Rockstar North president and lead producer of the Grand Theft Auto series for GTA 3 through GTA 5, Leslie Benzies, has secured $42m (£32m) to develop his Grand Theft Auto competitor, Everywhere.

As spotted by The Telegraph (thanks, VGC), Benzies' new studio, Build a Rocket Boy – which is based in both Edinburgh and Budapest – has secured the funds from investors like Cayman fund Makers, Galaxy Interactive and China megacorp, Netease.

Benzies sued his prior employer Take-Two Interactive for $150 million in unpaid royalties back in 2016. His suit alleged "numerous deceptions" on the part of Rockstar and its co-founders, Sam and Dan Houser, that eventually led to his forceful ousting from the company. The suit – which was eventually settled out of court in 2018 – claimed he was given a period of paid time off to celebrate the monumental success of the GTA franchise, but when he returned to work, he was unable to enter the Rockstar North office because his facilities access device had been deactivated.

Sadly, the news does not come with more information about the mysterious new venture, Everywhere but here's everything we know so far about Benzies' new venture.

ICYMI, the official Rockstar Support account recently told Grand Theft Auto fans to "stay tuned" for future updates about GTA 6, the next game in its mammoth open world crime franchise.

In a series of responses posted throughout the week, the Twitter account stated that Rockstar has "not released any information" about GTA 6 as of yet, but directed fans to the Rockstar Newswire page for "official updates" on the project.

For those of you still having fun in GTA Online, keep up with our GTA online patch notes and check out our list of GTA 5 cheats.

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.