The Build a Rocket Boy studio, founded by former Rockstar North president and GTA series producer Leslie Benzies, has cut some of its staff. This is reported by the PCGamesN portal with reference to its own sources.
Everywhere
It is unknown how many people were fired. But, according to PCGamesN, layoffs took place in all three offices of Build a Rocket Boy: in Edinburgh, Budapest and Montpellier. They mainly affected the publishing department, the art department and the testing team.
According to the studio's LinkedIn page, just under 400 people worked there before the layoffs.
Build a Rocket Boy is currently working on the Everywhere platform. The developers describe it as a metaverse filled with games and other entertainment content. By design, users themselves can create content for Everywhere using the built-in editor. The studio has not yet announced a release date for Everywhere, but in December 2023, it conducted the first closed testing.
In mid-January 2024, Build a Rocket Boy announced that it had received $110 million in investments from NetEase and a number of other companies. The money was planned to be spent on the development of Everywhere itself, the MindsEye game, which will be released only as part of Everywhere, as well as a set of tools for creating UGC ARCADIA games.