Rockstar Leeds

Rockstar Leeds Limited (formerly Möbius Entertainment Limited) is a British video game developer based in Leeds, England. The company was founded as Möbius Entertainment in December 1997, by Gordon Hall, Jason McGann, Dave Box and Ian J. Bowden. The company developed numerous titles for Game Boy Advance, including an adaptation of Remedy Entertainment‘s Max Payne (2001), which was published by Rockstar Games in late 2003. In April 2004, Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, announced that they had acquired Möbious Entertainment. As part of the agreement, the company became part of the Rockstar Games umbrella, and was renamed Rockstar Leeds.

As part of Rockstar Games, Rockstar Leeds primarily focused on game development for PlayStation Portable, developing Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories and Chinatown Wars. Other project undertaken around this time include PlayStation Portable ports of Rockstar San Diego‘s Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition (2005), Rockstar Toronto‘s The Warriors (2005), and Rockstar London‘s Manhunt 2 (2007), as well as their own game Beaterator (2009), developed in collaboration with Timbaland.

By August 2007, Rockstar Leeds had announced their intentions to switch from handheld game development to next-generation games, where their first such project was the Microsoft Windows port for Team Bondi‘s L.A. Noire (2011). Formerly the studio’s president, Hall resigned from Rockstar Leeds to join Activision‘s The Blast Furnace studio in August 2012, while art director Bowden left for GameDuell in August 2014. Other studios founded by Rockstar Leeds alumni include Double Eleven, founded by Lee Hutchinson and Matt Shepcar in February 2010, and Red Kite Games, founded by Simon Iwaniszak in June 2012.

Rockstar Leeds has most recently collaborated with all other Rockstar Games subsidiaries to develop Max Payne 3 (2012) as part of the Rockstar Studios collective, and assist Rockstar North with the development on their Grand Theft Auto V (2013).