Gordon Hall was mostly developing for handhelds, but he also had involvement in the Grand Theft Auto series.

Gamesindustry reported that the news was circulating the Yorkshire development scene in the United Kingdom that Gordon Hall, the founder of Rockstar Leeds, has passed away at the age of 51, and we don’t know the reason behind his sudden departure. hall founded Möbius Entertainment in 1997, and this studio developed several Game Boy Advance ports. For example, we can thank this team for the otherwise amazing GBA port of Max Payne, which used an isometric view to its advantage.

The handheld port of Max Payne was so impressive for Sam Houser, the president of Rockstar, that they ended up acquiring Möbius Entertainment, which was then renamed Rockstar Leeds in 2004. After the acquisition, the studio has continued developing for handheld platforms, resulting in Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS: March 2009, Sony PlayStation Portable: October 2009) and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PSP: October/November 2005, depending on the region, PS2: June 2006).

Hall was also involved in the development of Red Dead Redemption at Rockstar San Diego. He kept his president role of Rockstar Leeds until 2011 when he left the industry to research player psychology and microtransactions strategy. In 2013, he ended his break, but he came back to Activision Blizzard Mobile, as their chief creative officer.

Martyn Brown, the co-founder of Team17 said „Gordon was simply brilliant to be around, incredibly motivating and ever positive. 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.”

Rockstar Games also provided a statement to PCGamer, saying „We were very saddened to hear of the recent passing of Gordon Hall. During his time with us, Gordon helped create some truly amazing games and was instrumental in the creation of the classic, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. May he rest in peace. Our condolences go out to his family and friends for their loss.”

Gordon Hall lived for only fifty-one years. May he rest in peace.

Source: PCGamer