Rockstar Leeds founder Gordon Hall Hall Dies, age 51

Gordon Hall Hall, who founded the studio that will become Rockstar Leads – and works like Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto Toe: Chinatown Wars and LA Noir – has died at the age of 51. The Yorkshire development scene began to discuss the news today. No cause of death has been announced at the time of writing.

Hall Hall founded Mabius Entertainment in Leeds, England in 1997, focusing primarily on handheld games, including an advanced version of Max Payne’s Game Boy. Take-Interactive acquired the company in 2004, naming it Rockstar Leads in the process, Rockstar co-founder Sam Hauser said Max Payne’s company work on the game was impressive enough to impress him.

Rockstar leads with Hall Hall as studio president, becoming Rockstar’s handheld experts, co-developing GTA: Liberty City Stories and GTA: Vice City Stories with Rockstar North. It has also helped port other rockstar games over the years.

Later, the studio developed on GTA: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS – a game we reviewed at 9.5 / 10 and called one of the best games on the handheld. We talked to H’L in 2009 about the game’s development, and how Rockstar Leads GTA. Matching the city to the hardware of the DS.

Over the years, Hall has also supported the development of LA Noir, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games table tennis and many more. In 2011, Hall resigned from Rockstar Leeds, later joining Activation Blizzard Mobile as chief creative officer.

At IGN, we send our condolences to all Hall’s family and friends.

J Sk Scrabbles is the executive editor of IGN News.