Dan Houser Reveals Two New Games and Why He Avoids Open Worlds

Dan Houser, the co-founder and former head writer of Rockstar Games, is developing two new video games at his media company Absurd Ventures — an untitled open-world comedy and a dystopian sci-fi story about a rogue AI.

Houser formally launched Absurd Ventures in 2023, three years after leaving Rockstar, the studio behind "Grand Theft Auto" and "Red Dead Redemption." He revealed the first significant details about the projects on this week's episode of Variety's "Strictly Business" podcast.

"One is an open-world comedy which is trying to really lean into comedy and character memory, and that we'll have more information on in the next few months," Houser said. "And the other is a dystopian sci-fi about a video game development gone very wrong, and about a rogue AI that discovered sentience. But unfortunately, it was made by two people that didn't like each other, so it doesn't like itself."

The two games are among many projects Houser and his longtime writing partner Jeffrey "Lazlow" Jones, a fellow Rockstar alum, have in the works at Absurd Ventures. The company is building original IP across three worlds: "A Better Paradise," "American Caper" and the "Absurdaverse." Absurd is currently rolling out graphic novels and comics, fiction podcasts, books and animated series alongside the planned games, offering consumers a full transmedia experience within each Houser-created property.

"It's a privilege to be tied to stuff that was really successful and to have worked in great teams with great people and do innovative new things," Houser said. "All we're trying to do now is do a version of that for this period, and try and do it in a new way and see if there's anything interesting we can say with new IP."

To protect that creative process, Houser has been tuning out everything surrounding "Grand Theft Auto VI," including the 27-minute extended look Netflix presented in August.

"I haven't seen it yet. I will try and avoid it because I always try and avoid stuff that's going to distract or disrupt me creatively," Houser said. "Given that I spend a large amount of time trying to make open-world games, and the rest of my conscious time trying to figure out innovative ways to market them, I don't need to see what other people are [doing]. I'm always trying to think about new ways of doing it, not sit there in some kind of comparison of what I would have done differently."

That avoidance extends across the genre. Houser said he doesn't "play a lot of open-world games" anymore.

"I find when I play them, I can almost deconstruct the strengths and weaknesses of the team in real time and it's distracting," he said. "I'm always thinking, 'Well, their animation team is weak, but I think this game design is fantastic.' And, 'Oh, I can imagine that meeting when they discuss this feature.' I'm not a game designer, I'm a sort of creative director. So I'm trying to always find new things that haven't been done before, or that I can steal from older media, quite frankly or just inspired me or things I always thought about."

Houser manages this blind spot by employing a team that keeps up with the latest games and trends. "It's not my job within any company that I've ever worked at, thankfully, to be the person that understands what everyone else is doing," he said.

His self-imposed isolation has a long history. "When we worked on 'Red Dead Redemption,' as soon as we started working, I never watched another Western," Houser said. "I never watched 'The Sopranos' until after I left Rockstar. I saw one episode, because my girlfriend-now-wife and I did watch the finale in real time. I'd not seen any of it before that moment. And then I watched it all during COVID. And I'm grateful. It's so good that it would have disrupted everything I did on 'GTA,' had I watched at the time."

The timing guarantees scrutiny. "Grand Theft Auto VI" launches Nov. 19, marking the first game in the series made without Houser. Until he fully reveals his own games, speculation about how they will compare to his previous work will continue.

"In terms of will I always be compared to it? I don't know," Houser said. "I mean, hopefully, on some level there could be no greater compliment. On another level, I hope some of the stuff we make is going to be successful in its own right. It's no problem to have made good things, but of course, if you make good things, if the new stuff's not as impactful, that's going to be disappointing in some ways. But it's still a privilege to make anything, otherwise you're just always drowning in your own previous creative work."

Houser said his job "isn't to be successful in media" but "to make things I'm proud of." He described how he handled pressure at Rockstar.

"Certainly, there was a lot of pressure making any 'GTA' game when I was on them," he said. "And the way I would control that pressure for me was to say, am I making something with as much integrity as I can muster and am I making something I'm proud of? And does it feel fresh, new? And if that's the case, let the results fall where they may. And certainly, even with games at Rockstar that were not successful, I was proud of them if we'd done what I thought was a good job. And so that's going to be the same here. We can't sit there going, if it's not the biggest thing ever, I'm a failure. Because then you've got to process either, I'm a failure, I'm a success — but it feels just the same. So the work is the creative work, not what the market thinks of it."

With more details on the open-world comedy promised "in the next few months," the first real test of Absurd Ventures' transmedia strategy will arrive as the post-Houser era of "GTA" begins.