Rockstar Games co-founder and Grand Theft Auto writer Dan Houser has formally announced his next game. Rockstar Games is one of the most respected video game developers out there and a large part of that is thanks to the Houser brothers. Sam and Dan Houser co-founded the company and were instrumental in the studio’s success. Both are obsessive in ensuring their games are the best they can possibly be and push the envelope in major ways. Dan Houser specifically helped write many of Rockstar’s games including the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption titles. His fingerprints are all over the studio’s best games and many point to him as the key visionary behind these titles.
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However, that’s not totally true since these games are developed by thousands of people who all help shape them. Not only that, by Dan Houser also usually wrote the games with a team of people and had others help direct them. Nevertheless, he was a key figure and fans were heartbroken when he announced that he was leaving Rockstar Games in the early 2020s. Houser left following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 and began building a brand new video game studio called Absurd Ventures where he has recruited key talent from Rockstar, including Lazlow Jones and Red Dead Redemption 2 writer Michael Unsworth. Absurd Ventures has been working on a bunch of projects, including new games, TV shows, podcasts, and more.
Its first release was a narrative podcast known as A Better Paradise which stars the likes of Andrew Lincoln. However, Absurd Ventures announced that one of its next big projects is an animated series and a “story-driven action-comedy adventure game”, which is expected to be open-world, set in a connected universe called the “Absurdaverse”. More details will be properly announced later this year on both projects, but the studio released an image of characters from this universe. It has everything from your standard looking modern day civilians to skeletons and some sort of grim reaper-esque character. It’s unclear if these are all from the same time period or if the Absurdaverse will stretch across centuries.
It’s a pretty ambitious concept and it’s not even the only universe that Absurd Ventures is dealing with. A Better Paradise and another story, American Caper, are all set in their own respective universes too. It’s likely keeping Dan Houser, Michael Unsworth, Lazlow, and whoever else is helping write all these stories incredibly busy. It also shows that Houser has been able to accomplish a ton of stuff in the time it has taken for Rockstar Games to develop GTA 6. In the time since it went into full production, Houser has started a new company from scratch and developed a number of ambitious projects across multiple mediums.
As of right now, there’s no telling exactly what to expect from Dan Houser’s next video game. Whatever it is will likely be filled with satire, over the top humor, and lots of action, though. It seems unlikely it will be like GTA, though, given he spent years working on that series and probably wants to do something different. Hopefully, it won’t be too far away from releasing once fans do get to see it given the excruciating wait for GTA 6.
