Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder and lead writer on the GTA series until 2020, says he hasn't watched GTA 6's gameplay reveal and plans to keep it that way. Confirmed He said it on a Variety podcast, as reported by Kotaku.
What he said
He was talking about the 26-minute Extended Look that premiered on Netflix in August. He explained that he can't watch open-world games casually anymore: "I can almost deconstruct the strengths and weaknesses of the team in real time, and it's distracting." He says staff at his new company play new open-world games instead.
He's done this before. Houser says he only watched The Sopranos after leaving Rockstar, because it "would have disrupted everything I did on GTA."
What he's working on now
Houser founded Absurd Ventures in 2023. It has released audio dramas, comics and novels, and is making two games: Confirmed
- an open-world comedy built around humour and characters, with more news promised "in the next few months"
- "a dystopian sci-fi about a video game development gone very wrong", involving a rogue AI that becomes sentient
Did Dan Houser work on GTA 6?
No. He left Rockstar in 2020 and has said he had no involvement in GTA 6's story, though he expects it to be great. His brother Sam still runs Rockstar, and recently pulled out of a rare GQ interview. GTA 6 is the first mainline GTA written without Dan Houser. See who's in the cast.
Our read
It's less a snub than a working habit: a writer making his own open-world game doesn't want Rockstar's ideas in his head. It also shows how much the series has moved on. The writing of GTA 6, its satire and its version of Florida all come from a new generation at Rockstar. November 19 will show what that means.
Questions people are asking
Did Dan Houser write GTA 6?
No. Dan Houser left Rockstar in 2020 and has said he had no involvement in GTA 6. He co-wrote earlier GTA games and Red Dead Redemption 2.
Has Dan Houser seen GTA 6?
No. He told a Variety podcast he hasn't watched GTA 6's gameplay reveal and will try to avoid it, because it could distract him from his own open-world games at Absurd Ventures.