A company formed by a founder of Grand Theft Auto creator Rockstar Games is working on an “open world action-adventure game”.
Absurd Ventures recently posted a job listing for a lead gameplay designer for such a project, as spotted by Eurogamer.
The company was launched by Dan Houser in 2023. Houser was a co-founder of Rockstar Games, best known for making the GTA games.
Houser left the company in 2020, but is credited with writing classic Rockstar titles including Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
His new company, Absurd Ventures, revealed its first upcoming projects, A Better Paradise and American Caper, in November 2023. However, neither was pitched as an explicit video game property.
“American Caper centers on two normal, badly-damaged American families in a world of corrupt business, inept politics and bungling crime,” Absurd Ventures posted. It “will debut as a graphic novel that is being illustrated by renowned comic book artist, @theofficialsimonbisley."
A Better Paradise is even more mysterious, pitched as an “audio series”.
Absurd Ventures calls it “an existential suspense thriller, set in the near future. A 12-episode audio fiction series based on the A Better Paradise universe is currently in production.”
It’s not clear if the open-world game of the job advert is linked to either of these projects, but the existence of the “A Better Paradise universe” suggests it is possible.
The ad also suggests the game aims to deliver “best-in-class combat and third-person action across multiple game modes”, and hints it may be made using Unreal Engine 5. This is the game engine behind many of the top upcoming releases.
Studio founder Dan Houser’s brother Sam Houser is currently president of Rockstar Games. Its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to release in 2025 or 2026.
