Is Dan Houser, co-founder of Rockstar Games and former lead writer on Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, an equal to literary legends like Charles Dickens? Well, I dunno, ask me again in a couple of centuries when gaming's canon is settled, but Houser himself will tell you that there are some similarities between Victorian literature and Rockstar's world-building, and that influence became very explicit for Red Dead Redemption 2.
In an interview with The Guardian, Houser compares the GTA games to Charles Dickens novels, saying that while Rockstar's series isn't "as good" as those classic books, "they are similar in that he's world-building. If you look at Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy or any of those authors, there's that feeling of all the world is here – that's what you're trying to get in open world games." In fact, it turns out that during Red Dead Redemption 2's development, Houser found himself looking to that era of literature for more direct inspiration.
