GTA producer's Everywhere begins closed alpha test next week

Everywhere, the shared world creation metaverse-y thing from former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, will hold its first closed alpha test next week.

Closed Alpha 1: Systems Check will begin on Tuesday 5th December at midday UK time and run through until Monday 18th December. You can sign up for a free account now, via the Everywhere website.

Eurogamer got a glimpse at the hugely-ambitious Everywhere earlier this year, when Benzies assured us it was nothing to do with crypto or NFTs (remember those?) and teased the big budget episodic project MindsEye that will be available within it.

Similar to how Fortnite and Roblox offer user-created experiences, Everywhere will allow players to use creative tools to make their own mini-games - and like Fortnite, the ability to do so using an Unreal Engine 5-powered toolkit.

Exactly how this will all work and how much there will be to play around with at launch remains to be seen - and there's no detail yet on what next week's alpha test will include. All the more reason to sign up and find out, I suppose?

"We're trying to make more than a video game here," Benzies says. "We believe the world of games is changing. I always find the word game underwhelming for what's actually happening in the industry."

Fuelled by investment from NetEase, Everywhere developer Build a Rocket Boy has more than 400 staff building various bits of the game worldwide, housed in multiple sites across Edinburgh, Budapest, Montpellier and in China.