Rockstar Leeds Founder Gordon Hall Has Died

Video game developer Gordon Hall, founder of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars studio Rockstar Leeds has died. He was 51 years old.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that the tragic news was confirmed earlier today by multiple friends and colleagues from the Yorkshire development scene, of which Hall was an integral part.

Hall founded Möbius Entertainment back in 1997, developing a number of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance titles. Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive acquired Möbius in 2004 following the team's work on the GBA version of Max Payne, and it was rebranded as Rockstar Leeds.

With Hall at the helm, Rockstar Leeds would work with various Rockstar teams to create a number of excellent Grand Theft Auto titles, including the Liberty City Stories and the criminally underrated Nintendo DS game Chinatown Wars. In 2009 Hall joined Rockstar's San Diego team and assisted with development on Red Dead Redemption.

Hall took a sabbatical between 2011 and 2013 to research player psychology and microtransactions, before returning to the industry as chief creative officer for Activision Blizzard Mobile, GamesIndustry.biz explains.

"Gordon was simply brilliant to be around, incredibly motivating and ever positive," Martyn Brown, business development at Five Aces Publishing and co-founder of Team17 told the publication in a brief statement.

"His pursuit of excellence was staggering and he formed a great, trusting bond with those who chose to work (hard) alongside him. As a close friend, he was truly inspirational and socially speaking a real energetic one-off who could endlessly entertain at the drop of a hat, holding everyone in the palm of his hand. Gordon will be very sadly missed."

Our thoughts are with Gordon's friends, family, and colleagues at this time.

Topics: GAMING, Rockstar Games, News, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto