Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar and the writer of GTA 1-5, including various spin-offs, has departed from Rockstar to start a new company, Absurd Ventures, which was launched in 2023. While information on Absurd Ventures’ first game is scarce, the studio has hinted that their initial project will be a multimedia narrative, diverging from their usual focus on games.
Most recently, the studio announced that the first volume of their audio narrative, “A Better Paradise,” will be released on June 10th. The volume consists of 12 episodes and will be available on platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Additionally, a game set in the same universe as “A Better Paradise” is also in the works.
The storyline of “A Better Paradise” revolves around a near-future world where a large-scale digital game project, created by psychologist Dr. Mark Tyburn, takes an unexpected turn that no one could have foreseen. The development team splits up, leaving the project abandoned until someone rediscovers it.
Information about the game also reveals that Absurd Ventures is currently hiring developers to work on an open-world action-adventure game with a strong focus on combat mechanics, set in a third-person perspective. Applicants must have experience working with Unreal Engine 4-5.
Source – Absurd Ventures, IGN
TLDR: Dan Houser leaves Rockstar to start Absurd Ventures, with their first project being the multimedia narrative “A Better Paradise,” which will also have a corresponding game set in a unique near-future world.
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