The mysterious Everywhere could give Rockstar Games' eventual release of Grand Theft Auto 6 a run for its money. The title is being developed by indie studio Build A Rocket Boy Games, headed by ex-Rockstar employees. Its most notable member is former Rockstar North President Leslie Benzies, who founded the studio after a public falling-out with Rockstar in 2016. Benzies and his team have closely guarded any information about their Everywhere game for years, but the company may have already revealed the first detailed glimpse at what GTA 6 rival Everywhere's gameplay could look like.
Benzies' studio was granted two patents by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2020. Both explained key world-building and gameplay design methods Build A Rocket Boy will seemingly use to create Everywhere. While the documents lack any specific identifiers of where the game will be set or what its plot could be about, there's enough about the world and its functions to believe it could be ambitious enough to best GTA 6.
The patents, "System and Method For Providing A Computer-Generated Environment" and "Multi-Player Game," were published by the WIPO on February 2, 2020, and December 24, 2020, respectively. Redditor NestorSite and a group of other curious fans unearthed the documents in late January 2021 and summarized their implications on the Build A Rocket Boy subreddit. It appears the developer wants Everywhere to be more than just a game; it could be a virtual platform for endless single-player and multiplayer experiences.
Keep in mind that patents are not perfect reflections of what companies are developing. Benzies and his team could use these documents' techniques for a completely separate project - or scrap them entirely. However, given how secretive the company has been about Everywhere in the past, this is the most comprehensive look at Build A Rocket Boy's inner workings that has ever been discovered. Everywhere's release date might still be years away, but here's everything the patents revealed about the upcoming game.
For starters, it seems Everywhere will consist of two separate worlds. The first is an overworld, where players can convene with friends, make purchases, and explore the digital environments on foot or in vehicles. Then, there are many - potentially endless - smaller worlds that allow players to play games like battle royales or watch digital media on services like Netflix. Think about it like Super Mario 64, where Princess Peach's Castle consists of other levels accessible through paintings.
In this theoretical Everywhere overworld, players would be able to enter shops that contain everything from in-game cosmetics to virtual representations of real-world objects. The patent uses an example of a bicycle or a car that can be interacted with in the overworld and then purchased inside of Everywhere and even in real life. It doesn't spell out how this would work, such as through any specific retail partnerships, but it sounds like players may be able to simultaneously shop for their avatar and themselves.
That feature, and a handful of other virtual reality-like features, suggest Everywhere might be a VR experience, but that hasn't been confirmed at this point. There has even been speculation that Everywhere could launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. However, Benzies also owns a firm entitled VR-Chitect Limited, which develops VR hardware and software, according to The Scotsman.
The overworld sounds like it will reflect the real world, and there won't be an overarching story or plot that dominates that area of Everywhere. Instead, it seems more like a vast lobby that players can inhabit before embarking on their own adventures. Benzies teased something like this in a 2017 interview with Polygon, saying, "We want this game to be less restrictive than other games. While the game has multiple narratives, we also want players to create their own narratives that include characters with a real personality." So, where will players find Everywhere's more traditional gameplay experiences?
Upon entering one of those figurative paintings inside Peach's Castle - be that by walking into a building or by slipping on a pair of in-game glasses - it seems players will be transported to a completely different game mode. The patents only specify one kind of game that could be found inside Everywhere, but the documents make it seem like players could even create their own environments, like a high-tech Minecraft. Anytime players enter one of these alternative worlds, their avatar in the overworld will appear busy.
The patents only vaguely refer to a bizarre, battle royale-like game mode, where music and rhythm play a major role. When players enter the game, they're placed in teams and get to choose from a library of music that will have a unique impact on the virtual environment around them and on the capabilities of their avatar. For example, the music could impact the speed at which players move, the weather inside the game, and the kind of loot found in the game.
The descriptions for this rhythmic battle royal are indistinct, but it appears Everywhere will serve as a smorgasbord of virtual content for any user to access. Friends across the world might be able to join a private room to play a game of virtual basketball, or users might be able to play existing video games by accessing them through the overworld, like free-to-play sensations Fortnite or Among Us. The possibilities are endless based on what Build A Rocket Boy has laid out so far, but its Everywhere concepts could also be a little too ambitious to come true. Still, one thing is clear: Benzies wants to create a lot more than just a GTA 6 competitor.
While Grand Theft Auto 6 has been rumored to span multiple cities and shatter the scope of other Rockstar releases, Everywhere's patents don't make it seem like an open-world RPG, at all. Instead, it sounds like a kind of social media platform or an attempt to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's 1992 science-fiction novel, Snow Crash - a parallel digital world that people can log into to live out their fantasies.
Source: NestorSite/Reddit
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February 09, 2021 at 05:18AM
