BETA | STUDIOS // ROCKSTAR NORTH
Victory. Variety. Valuable. Versatile. Vitality. There are many ways to describe the studio behind Grand Theft Auto V. But here it is from the mouths of the people who have led the team. Michael French visits Rockstar North
THE VISION
LESLIE BENZIES HAD always dreamt of being a rockstar.
But a talent in coding led him not to headline Glastonbury, but to secure a job on a bigger, global stage. He started as a coder at DMA Design, then the man running the GTA III team, and now, fittingly, a Rockstar – president of its prized North studio in Edinburgh. Today, Benzies is one of the four-piece
present when a Grand Theft Auto is initially conceived. It’s him who sits down with his partners at Rockstar Games, co-founders Sam and Dan Houser, plus Rockstar North art lead Aaron Garbut, to flesh out the initial idea. While Rockstar hit the big time, that core
process remains unchanged game after game. It’s part of the reason why these blockbusters have kept their flavour through each instalment. For GTA V, that discussion started as GTA IV was wrapping up – almost five years ago – although the latest game has been in full production for just three years. “It comes from the idea first,” Benzies tells us in his office at the studio. “Where is it going to be set is the first question. Then that defines the missions; you’re doing different things in LA than in New York or Miami. The map and story get worked up together, and the story is a basic flow of how it works out so you can layer the missions in. “For this one we were down in London and the idea of the three characters popped up
14 | OCTOBER 2013
again. We’d actually considered it for San Andreas because there were three cities, but it didn’t work from a tech point of view because the three characters need three times as much memory, three types of animation, and so on. “We throw stuff in the pot, and the good
stuff stays and the bad stuff disappears – there are a lot of gatekeepers at the studio, who ensure not much of the chaff makes it through. Some of the good ideas, like the three characters, stick around.”
GTA III was good, if unexpected. Being
able to actually make it was a shock. The fact it all works and was good fun was a surprise.
Leslie Benzies, President
ROCK STAR THINKING Everyone likens GTA to the movies by virtue of its cinematic qualities, but Benzies tells us it isn’t a movie, it’s more like an album. Each GTA is produced by the same set of lead band members – visionaries, auteurs, extremists – who are in turn supported by some of the best technicians in the business. When Benzies recounts the GTA story briefly, it almost sounds like a poetic rock ‘n’ roll blur.
The studio was formed in Edinburgh after Rockstar Games bought DMA Design, built as a team dedicated to making GTA III. The game was taking the series into unknown 3D open world territory, with a vivid interactive city to seamlessly explore. We all know the broad strokes of what happened next: a global phenomenon, a super-franchise with a string of lucrative sequels, a studio with the most enviable hit- machine reputation on the planet. But it didn’t seem like any success was
assured at one point, says Benzies. “GTA III was good, but… it was unexpected. Being able to actually make it was a bit of a shock to us. The fact it all works and was good fun was a surprise. A lot of people in the studio at the time said we couldn’t do it.” Vice City swiftly followed, published just a
year later. “It was over so quickly,” recalls Benzies. “It was a nine month production. Forget the ‘experience’ – it just happened. We were on such a high from IIIwe just ran through it.” San Andreas came next. It was the most
successful single-platform game ever, and the most praised. “It was good, it combined all the stuff we had done so far. It felt the most cohesive and the scale was huge,” says Benzies. Then GTA IV… “GTA IV was dark times,” Benzies confides, switching tone. “We’d been Hot Coffee-d. We were thinking ‘We make video games, and [the US authorities are] doing this to us?!’” Meanwhile, the transition to the then next- generation meant calling in help from other Rockstar studios to help finish the PS3 version
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