It's been over five years since we first reported that Grand Theft Auto creator Leslie Benzies was working on a new open world game called Everywhere.
At that time, Benzies provided a basic overview of the game via an interview with GamesBeat.
Everywhere has a lot of traditional game mechanics but we’re going for something more that draws inspiration from, well, everywhere. Players are getting smarter and require more from their games, and we want players to have the real freedom to live in our worlds in the ways they want to. We’re aiming to offer a huge variety of game modes and styles that not only tell our stories but also enable players to live in the identities and adventures they most want to explore.
Benzies was joined in the endeavor by former Rockstar North audio director Matthew Smith, who added at the time:
We’ll be keeping the actual story and overall setting of Everywhere to ourselves for now. But more broadly the game is about giving the player an enormous amount of freedom, with enough possibilities and just enough constraints to keep you constantly entertained and at the same time feel like you’re actively shaping the world around you, and living in a genuinely alternate reality. Games can often give either so much freedom and openness that you quickly get bored, or so much heavily-scripted content that you’re very aware you’re seeing the exact same content as everyone else, with just the illusion of free will. It’s a very hard problem—but we’re going to face it head-on and try to make an engaging experience that feels incredibly real.
Matthew Smith has left the project several years ago. After that announcement interview, the flow of official information essentially stopped, eventually leading fans to believe that Everywhere may never come to fruition. We know that the game was originally being built with the Amazon Lumberyard engine, but the game's official Twitter account revealed in late 2020 that Everywhere would be switching to Unreal Engine technology.
That's the very last official tidbit, but today French journalist Chris Kippel has shared the first leaked game images.
. #Everywhere pic.twitter.com/sttyWxBEVt
— Build A Rocket Mag’ (@BuildRocket_Mag) June 28, 2022
It looks like Everywhere will feature stylized graphics. However, don't fret yet if that is not your thing. The game's Twitter fan page discovered job offers hinting at a dual art style, which could mean that there are at least two worlds in Everywhere, one with stylized graphics and another possibly with realistic graphics.
From Everywhere job offers pic.twitter.com/Pr65sOotH0
— EverywhereNet (@EverywhereNet) June 27, 2022
We've reached out to the developers and will update the story should they provide any comments.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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