Leslie Benzies and Dan Houser of Rockstar Games. Along with Sam Houser, they received the Hall of Fame award at DICE 2015.
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How Grand Theft Auto leader Leslie Benzies conceived Everywhere after rocky Rockstar departure

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Leslie Benzies was one of the leads on Grand Theft Auto V and one of the custodians of the Grand Theft Auto franchise for years. But after the game shipped in 2013, Benzies got in a dispute with Sam Houser, one of the cofounders of Rockstar Games, a label of Take-Two Interactive.

Now Benzies, the former president of Rockstar North, has formed his own studio to make a game with the working title of Everywhere. Benzies is still in litigation with Rockstar Games, so he couldn’t talk about that. But he disclosed his inspiration for Everywhere and what the team is trying to do.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.