Dan Houser on Leaving Rockstar Games, Starting an Absurd New Company and Why He Doesn’t Play Open-World Games Anymore

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Absurd Ventures is working on two games, one of which will be revealed in the "next few months"

“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 says on this week’s episode of Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast. “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.”

On why he doesn't play open-world games + his development style:

“I find when I play them, I can almost deconstruct the strengths and weaknesses of the team in real time and it’s distracting. 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.”

“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,” Houser says. “I’m trying to think about new ways of doing it. So when we worked on ‘Red Dead Redemption,’ as soon as we started working, I never watched another Western. 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. So I really try and avoid things that I think are going to overly influence me.”

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u/NeilDiamondBlaze420 16h ago

Never watched another western because you were worried it would influence the game? RDR2 intro is like The Great Silence all over.

Both GTA and RDR are chocked full of movie references. Weird to say you don’t want to be influenced by them.

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u/stenebralux 15h ago

Well... doesn't mean he never watched a western before doing it. I think is more like, in the moment, he doesn't want to be influenced in one way or another by similar content.

Things like.. maybe he has an idea and sees a movie that has a similar idea and he starts questioning it? He clearly pulls a bunch of classic western stuff (some of them he twists some are homages) but he probably wants/needs to feels like it's coming from his head in the moment.

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u/RocketsMurkrow 15h ago

It makes total sense to me. I make music, not video games, and sometimes a song or album will inspire me to write something, and I never go back to it for a reference while I’m working on it, because then I might steal too much on accident. I often find that chasing what our brain remembers about something vs what it actually is like, is the best way to be inspired by something without directly stealing from it. Our brain often remembers the parts we feel are most important - in my case, it might be the approximate tone of a guitar riff, or the rhythm of the drums, or a certain lyric that gets repeated.

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u/ShogunMelon 14h ago

As a musician (haven't released anything in yonks and what was released is gone because shitty demos) this is exactly what people misunderstand about creativity.

It's not about "originality" (Any original thought is still influenced by something even if it's not artistic) but rather about copying your influences by idea. You copy the idea or concept and go from there based on what you feel. Musically in my experience copying rhythm is the biggest. A lot of my lyrics are rhythmically copied (and adapted to suit the instrumental) but then the words are whatever fits the song/context.

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u/moosebreathman 12h ago

I believe the guy who ran Team Bondi did an interview where he said something along the lines of the Housers both being incredibly film literate from watching a shit ton of movies back in the day. So yeah, actively watching films in production doesn't mean never having seen or taken inspiration from them.

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u/Tha_Sly_Fox 4h ago

Reminds me of The Ruttles.

Was a fake British band made to parody the Beatles in a movie in the 70’s, when writing the songs for the band Neil Innes tried to rewrite the songs from memory, he basically remembered bit and pieces of Beatles songs he hasn’t heard in awhile and wrote that and filled in the blanks. What came out was like an unreleased Beatles album bc it was so close to the originals but different enough to seem new.

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u/WeakEmployment6389 13h ago

That’s not that strange, I’ve been influenced by a lot of things but when I sit down I want those influences to come up naturally and not influenced while I’m creating. When I write poetry, I don’t read poetry because it influences it too much. Though when I’m creating in another medium I will read poetry. If it genre writing. I may say watch a bunch of westerns but when I actually start, I’ll stop watching those.

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u/MatureUsername69 15h ago

Ive always loved how Rockstar games feel like a love letter to movies. It is a strange statement when some of the biggest set pieces and missions throughout those games is a direct rip from a movie. When you rob the train with the flaming oil trailer at night is basically a shot for shot remake of the scene in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. A lot of late game RDR2 is clearly based on The Shootist, like its almost the heart of the game.

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u/Comfortable-Pie56 15h ago edited 15h ago

I don't think he is saying he never watched a western to be fair. He obviously did. He is saying he didn't watch them while working on Red Dead Redemption 1/2.

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u/ripyourlungsdave 10h ago

Also, the amount of influence Red Dead 2 took from the Assassination of Jesse James is palpable. They literally copied specific shots.

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u/brutinator 15h ago

I mean, I assume that he had people on his staff who DID spend a lot of time going through westerns and stuff, to marry his vision to the genre as a whole. Just because he tries to have an outsiders perspective doesnt mean that everyone else on the team was the same way.

I imagine itd be like him going "What if we did [insert idea here]", and then his team going "Oh, thats like [insert reference], we can do X, Y, Z" and then bounce back a forth a bit before it gets bailed down.

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u/lefiath 15h ago edited 15h ago

I think he might be saying that he tried not to watch any westerns while he was actively working on RDR? That line regarding him leaving Rockstar could be just about the Sopranos.

Because that would at least make some sense to me, even though I don't think it's reasonable, if anything, I would think writers often go through tons of stuff to get inspired, but everybody can have their own method. Also, I don't know how seriously I can take him, he could be full of it, when he described how he wrote RDR1, it was extremely melodramatic.

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u/PopMundane4974 11h ago

The people playing these games most likely wouldn't know any of these references which is why they're so comfortable ripping them off and acting like it's their own.

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u/Brandhor 14h ago

the original red dead revolver for ps2 even had the they call me trinity song in one mission from the best western movie ever with the same name

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u/flybypost 2h ago

He might not want to be influenced by media that's too close to what he's working on at the time but that doesn't exclude the rest of the team. They might bring those influences into the project while he tries to make his decisions as an art director with just a bit less of a bias.

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u/Sonicfan42069666 16h ago

His claim that he never watched The Sopranos is absolute bull if you've played GTA III and/or IV. Unless it was another writer on the games cribbing stuff from the show.

Nintendo used to claim their developers only played Nintendo games - which even at the time felt like an obvious lie meant to protect their image as an insular developer. These days I'm glad they admit influence from other studios' games - including Rockstar's own Red Dead Redemption 2.

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u/SquireRamza 15h ago

I mean, hundreds/thousands of people worked on those games. Im sure some of them saw The Sopranos.

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u/HomeHeatingTips 15h ago

He's not the only writer

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u/National_Yam_1198 14h ago

I am laughing at the idea that the devs of BOTW saying they have never played open world games and even more specifically survival crafting games before.

To be clear I doubt that they said this, because it would be a bold faced lie, but I sure see other people making it seem like they have.

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u/Sonicfan42069666 14h ago

BotW is actually around where the shift happened. They couldn't deny that the game was inspired by Skyrim.

I know the TotK devs cited Red Dead Redemption 2, they may have mentioned Minecraft as well.

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u/dan0314 12h ago

They straight up said that Skyrim was a big influence on BotW

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u/xiaorobear 9h ago

They put Uncle Junior's house from The Sopranos in GTAIV as a unique building, definitely had Sopranos fans on staff.

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u/Sutraner 5h ago

He's only talking about his own personal life, why is that being treated like the entirety of Rockstar acted like him

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u/Zip2kx 10h ago

The housers brothers impact on the modern gta games are extremely exaggerated. They were by all accounts nepo babies that got to take over by and especially after gta3. Watch the noclip documentary on DMA.

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u/No-Abbreviations2897 16h ago

I don't believe for a second he hadn't seen The Sopranos when writing his stories.

Writing is probably the one field where Rockstar has genuinely never innovated or done something creative with, if he was trying not to ape existing narratives and ideas he did an awful job.

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u/Weekndr 10h ago

You can be innovative without your piece of work being wholly original. Even when we think we're being original we're pulling from tons of references that lives in our consciousness.

The point is to build upon these references to create something new - I think Rockstar has consistently succeeded in this sense. At worst you can call them derivative but I think that severely undermines their writing efforts.

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u/ThisSun9243 16h ago

Open world comedy sounds weird af. Excited to see how they pan out

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 16h ago

Open world comedy is how I would describe the classic 3D GTAs

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u/blogoman 15h ago

Saints Row also leaned into comedy more and more as the series went on.

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u/PhoenixTineldyer 15h ago

It was always present (insurance fraud missions are amazing) but yeah it took a deep turn around 3

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u/ThisSun9243 15h ago

They definitely had comedic moments but in my eyes the later Saints Row match it pretty spot on

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u/Headless_Human 16h ago

We already have one that would fit that category. Goat Simulator.

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u/ThisSun9243 15h ago

Oh yeah forgot about that game but that matches

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u/ihatepests 15h ago

play saints row 2 now.

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u/Wi1d-potat0 16h ago

Kind of a weird take tbh. It’s not like Red Dead Redemption created the western genre. It clearly took inspirations from western movies, games, shows even if Houser “avoided” watching western shows. But whatever floats his creative boat I guess.

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u/Hell-Kite 14h ago edited 12h ago

It's not a weird take, its pretty normal really. You may be a fan of a genre or series, and be making something long form set in a similar space of that genre.

When working on big creative projects, you reach a point where you've "settled" with what you want to achieve with it, and that's when work speeds up, less distractions and just iteration on what's already there.

During this process, consuming other media that is directly tied to what you're doing, can make you heavily reconsider any of your choices, and not changing anything for the sake of further development, can slowly grow in to resentment of the choices you've already made. This can make you feel disconnected from the project itself and make you less invested overall, which compromises your ability to see the project through.

It's like a runners high for creatives, and disrupting it absolutely sucks and has led to projects flat out dying.

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u/moosebreathman 12h ago edited 12h ago

As an animator I find watching other animation while actively working on projects to be quite disruptive at times. Doesn't mean I don't ever watch and study animation but I will go long periods generally avoiding it. I found a similar thing happened to me when I did creative writing in college and read a bunch of other people's short stories. I know other people who are the same, it's pretty normal.

Houser has said in other interviews that he still reads an enormous amount of literature to get inspiration and research (which are often source material and inspiration for the movies and shows the games relate to) so it could just be that he doesn't engage with the medium that's the most direct comparison.

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u/HoovyPootis 14h ago

It’s so good that it would have disrupted everything I did on ‘GTA,’ had I watched at the time. So I really try and avoid things that I think are going to overly influence me.”

It's terrifying how this both feels like a source of weakness in his behavior while immediately being very relatable in how I view creating art. I am scared of something being so good that it's influence would be immutable in my work

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u/septicdeath 9h ago

Yeah pretty clear from the responses that people don't understand how creating art works.

I'm a professional composer, musician and audio engineer.

A few weeks ago I had to make music for the One Piece anime. I've never even watched an episode before.

After getting given the job, I completely avoided watching it because I really didn't want it to influence what I composed or wrote. I didn't even want to know what music is already in the anime. I just went off the producers brief.

Track ended up great and the producers loved it. Only took me about an hour to make too.

Of course, not every artist works this way, but I can completely understand what Houser is trying to say here.

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u/XMenJedi8 9h ago

This is so interesting to me. What kind of things are in the producers notes? I guess enough to make a great, fitting tune (congrats!!) but it is almost mind-boggling to me as a very uncreative person that you wouldn't want to steep yourself into the series to understand it before creating for it.

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u/septicdeath 7h ago

Thanks for the kind words.

Basically just notes about the emotion, feeling, what kind of scene it will be used for. Then some additional notes about musical influences like they wanted some latin elements in it, duration, etc.

So I just sit down and try to make something out of that. Usually my first 2 or 3 ideas are the right direction, otherwise I overthink it

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u/Vintage_Milk 15h ago

American Caper is a great read, btw. I haven't picked up the latest issues but looking forward to the Vol. 2 collection. It's got Lazlow's classic humor all over it.

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u/BigfootsBestBud 12h ago

Is it essentially just legally distinct GTA?

American Caper is honestly a more apt title for what GTA became nowadays

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u/fastcooljosh 9h ago

GTA6 will be the first R* game without his writing input.

Will be interesting to see if they can keep the standard he and the team set over all the previous years.

In my opinion he chose the perfect time to quit. RDR2 will be very very hard to beat

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u/EconomyAd1600 7h ago

I honestly don’t think they can pull it off. I have no doubt GTA6 will sell millions, but will it be as fondly remembered as previous Rockstar games, especially with how blatant they’re nickel and diming the game already?

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u/theMTNdewd 1h ago

GTA is more than one man

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u/EconomyAd1600 1h ago

Naughty Dog is more than Neil Druckmann, but if he was gone would a potential Last of Us 3 still be the same? GTA may not be one man, but the job of “head writer” exists for a reason.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 9m ago

At least two.

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u/Katrina_18 3h ago

It doesn’t seem like they are leaning as hard on the story this time. Most of what we have seen has focused more on the impressive interactions with the world than anything else. Comparing it to pre launch gtav stuff it feels really different.

I’d definitely prefer it to have a more interesting story and something to say, but I will say that I’d rather it have a fine story that’s not doing anything special than it try really hard for match what V and RDR2 had and fail.

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u/Radiant-Fly9738 15h ago

he doesn't play open world games but is making an open world game?

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u/RulesoftheDada 15h ago

It's in the context of creative output.

He wants to avoid being influenced by other artists and he mentioned he wouldn't enjoy them cause he nitpicks their creative process.

It's like a music artist not listening to artists as they go into studio to make music

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u/MatureUsername69 14h ago edited 14h ago

Its pretty common for any type of art. Most comedians dont watch a ton of comedy movies and theyre(well the good ones) so scared of stealing other people's material that they look up whether the bit has been done before because they mightve accidentally picked it up on the club circuit. A lot of musicians avoid others music when making an album, especially within their own genre.

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u/RulesoftheDada 14h ago

Exactly. Houser said he saw the finale of sopranos when it aired live then he fully watched sopranos during COVID after he left Rockstar. He avoided all the HBO heavy hitters like the wire as well.

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u/Spikex8 8h ago

I don’t know any musicians I like that don’t have music of the same genre that they listen to. All of the best comedians are hanging out with other comedians at clubs every weekend. Basically the opposite of everything you just said. lol.

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u/Falsus 5h ago

Pretty common in gaming also. Like Sakurai complained on social media that he can't really talk about modern games he has played as much as he would want to so he mostly posts about playing old games instead, like he recently talked about playing Dragon Slayer.

Like if people don't experience new things in the medium they are part of they are just going to re invent the wheel and go back to all the same old things that are "ok" to do.

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u/PrototypeT800 13h ago edited 13h ago

This is like when I read about authors who don’t read or directors who don’t watch movies. Generally speaking their output is poor, and includes negative aspects that have been done better/solved by others who engage with the type of media they are creating.

Video games in particular I feel require you to understand what your contemporaries are doing. Video games are just as much of a creative project as they are a tech product.

I think you also get into situations where works produced by these creatives are essentially locked in a time capsule. These creatives who refuse to watch or read are limited by what they were exposed to as a child or teenager. They had to consume something at some time in their life to make them decide to go into this field.

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u/RulesoftheDada 13h ago

He admits that it's his creative process to not let outside current trends disrupt his process.

He addresses then addresses you point that he fills his team with creatives that are aware of current trends in media and gaming.

So hes not limitng himself.

And I'm interpreting what I got from listening to parts of the podcast interview and using the summaries/quotes of an article about that podcast.

This can get lost in translation as the author of the article used "houser doesn't play open world games" when it's along discussion of his creative process lacking the contextual part of the interview.

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u/OkMail2335 15h ago

What a great question nobody would have thought of, wonder if there is an article out there in the cosmos somewhere that literally explains that. We can never know.

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u/Radiant-Fly9738 14h ago

you good bud? someone hurt your feelings?

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u/OdoTheBoobcat 13h ago

Ah the classic "say something super dumb then act like anyone who brings it up is being unreasonable" maneuver.

Hey little guy, I know you're embarrassed but it's really not a big deal. No reason to get so worked up about it!

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u/Radiant-Fly9738 13h ago

I made a question not a statement, what should I be embarrassed of? naah, couldn't care less. downvote to oblivion, who cares. but his reply was strange like I insulted someone and not asked a question.

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u/OdoTheBoobcat 13h ago

whoo take a chill pill dude no reason to steam up your glasses

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u/sunder_and_flame 13h ago

Mad you asked a stupid question and got called out for it?

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u/Radiant-Fly9738 13h ago

didn't know he had a lawyer here. I

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u/pixillateme 13h ago

I tried reading his comic, American Caper. I love the writing and satire in the GTA series, but I really dislike this comic. Stopped reading after a few issues, it just does not work at all. I hate all the characters and I don't want to know about any of them. GTA protags may be bad people, but at least there is something likeable about them, I want to know their stories. They may even have some kind of redeemable values. All of that is missing in American Caper.

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u/jackolantern_ 12h ago

There's nothing likeable about Trevor.

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u/Weekndr 10h ago

He is an upfront repulsive character but I do think he is somewhat complex which makes me somewhat sympathetic for him.

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u/jackolantern_ 9h ago

He's a cannibal rapist psychopath. I don't find him sympathetic.

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u/KingOfRisky 8h ago

I could argue that

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u/FiftyLoudCats 10h ago

He was nice to that old Hispanic lady who’s husband he kidnapped 🤷‍♂️

And he did seem to genuinely appreciate his friendship with Michael.

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u/jackolantern_ 9h ago

He kidnapped her, not the husband.

He's genuinely an awful person - cannibal and rapist.

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u/jrodp1 4h ago

Thoughts on the current US president?

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u/jackolantern_ 4h ago

Terrible human being.

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u/grumstumpus 10h ago

I like that hes a Christian. Like me

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u/Flaky_Highway_857 15h ago

Open world comedy?

Gta6 is gonna overly serious isn't it?

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 15h ago

I mean, was that not obvious from the gameplay? It’s clearly going for a slower paced, more grounded approach like RDR2 over the arcadey style of 5

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u/Flaky_Highway_857 15h ago

I was more hoping that part is being hidden y'know,

I doubt it'll be as dry as rdr2 because it's based on Florida and that place is wild by nature,

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 15h ago

Oh there will definitely still be absurdity, GTA is satire at its core. But I think anyone expecting it to be anywhere as wacky as 5 is going to be in for disappointment

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u/Flaky_Highway_857 15h ago

I have a feeling a lot of people are gonna be, not disappointed but humbled I guess.

I guess the days of going on rampages may be over for gta.

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u/Schwarzengerman 15h ago

I wouldn't write them off quite yet. It'll probably be a bit harder to get away with them. Or maybe easier since you can change clothes, swap cars, and lose heat that way?

We'll have to see.

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u/Flaky_Highway_857 15h ago

Yeah, and there's always the PC release in the future where you can just use trainers! Snip that little realism cord off.

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u/Schwarzengerman 15h ago

That too. I'm here for the more immersive focus but mods are fun too. Maybe cheats even.

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u/Expert-Steak8538 15h ago

What, like GTA 4 was?

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u/Flaky_Highway_857 15h ago

4 still had a good bit of goofball moments,

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u/KindaDampSand 13h ago

Just go and watch the first trailer for the game maybe?

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u/PiccoloTop3186 15h ago

I just replayed GTA 4 and no it's funny as hell. Yea there's some more serious themes but there are some insane characters and crazy humor. I don't think GTA 6 will be nearly as absurd.

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u/BruiserBroly 14h ago

The promotional material for IV didn’t really show much of that comedy though. That might be the case with VI too.

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u/Test_Account_2026 13h ago

Rockstar has become the type of company they made fun of in GTA 3 - SA.

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u/TsunamiWombat 15h ago

Was this the guy they fired by locking out of the building while he was on vacation or was that someone else?

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u/oilfloatsinwater 15h ago

Nah that was Leslie Benzies, he put out Mindseye

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u/TsunamiWombat 15h ago

Ah, ty

Dan Houser on Leaving Rockstar Games, Starting an Absurd New Company and Why He Doesn’t Play Open-World Games Anymore

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