Rockstar Co-Founder Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures Is Working on an “Open World Action-Adventure Game”

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser left the studio behind the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises pretty unexpectedly in 2020, shifting his career focus to quietly work on establishing a new studio – Absurd Ventures. Not only is Houser’s new studio seeking to span across several media types including live action and animated movies, books, graphic novels, scripted podcasts, and more…plus video games, of course. While Absurd has previously announced its debut projects with a new graphic novel known as American Caper and a narrative-driven audio series known as A Better Paradise, we now know a bit more about the studio’s video game plans for the future.

Thanks to job listings on the Absurd Ventures website we know Houser’s new studio is working on “an open world action-adventure game,” which is currently seeking a Lead Gameplay Designer. While the open-world action-adventure specification is reserved solely for this position, the Santa Monica-based studio is also looking to fill the roles of Art Director, Lead Designer, Senior Art Director, Senior Producer, Senior Technical Director, and Technical Director in their Game Development area.

The Lead Gameplay Designer listing notes the individual selected will “Become the primary vision holder and hands-on contributor for character, controls, and camera design in an open world action-adventure game. The person in this role will lead a team of multi-disciplinary specialists to deliver best-in-class combat and third person action across multiple game modes.” The listing may also indicate some additional basic details for Absurd’s action-adventure game, as it specifies they’re looking for a candidate with experience developing both melee and shooting mechanics, and that “multiplayer combat design experience is a plus.”

Absurd Venture’s career page also notes that they “will be staffing more roles for our Game Development teams in the future,” and as such are accepting general applications as well.

When Absurd Ventures was announced, the studio stated that they intend to create “weird shit from desperate people,” a vibe that is consistently seen throughout its previously announced projects’ descriptions and its overall online presence, with their website and social media full of delightful weirdness. For instance, the Feed page on their website includes a quote from Jean-Jacques Rousseau just below a trippy graphic claiming “the robots are depressed.”

Are you looking forward to whatever Houser’s new studio is cooking up? Chat with me about it on socials @amazingspidrhan!