Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has provided a little more insight into what fans can expect from his newest studio, Absurd Ventures. While the new studio doesn’t have the clout that Rockstar Games has built up over the past 26 years, the celebrated game developer and producer has recently unveiled the Absurdaverse, a new universe of heroes that will cover a wide variety of media, and not just video games.
Houser founded Rockstar Games alongside his brother and current Rockstar Games president, Sam Houser, and others in 1998. His career highlights as lead writer for the company saw him as a driving force behind multiple Grand Theft Auto games as well as Bully, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3. However, Dan Houser left Rockstar Games nearly five years ago following an extended break that began in spring 2019, citing an exhausting schedule that sometimes saw him working about 100 hours per week.
Now, Dan Houser’s newest studio, Absurd Ventures, is giving fans a sneak peek at a wide variety of heroes that will be populating its new universe, called the Absurdaverse. A new image posted on Absurd Ventures’ official website displays 20 different characters who don’t look like they necessarily fit into the same game, including a horned helmet-wearing barbarian, a dapper Victorian-era-looking chap with steampunk goggles on his top hat, a pale-skinned figure wearing a necklace of skulls with his face concealed under a green hood, and many more modern-looking characters. While Absurd Ventures isn’t giving too much information about any of these characters yet, they all somehow fit into the same universe, and the company promises to reveal more later this year through animation projects.
A very first look at just a few characters from the ABSURDAVERSE. Prepare to meet some new kinds of heroes (and watch them suffer).
More information to come this year about the first animation projects and about our original story-driven action-comedy adventure game set in the… pic.twitter.com/EhDl7YE9ch
— Absurd Ventures (@AbsurdVentures) January 31, 2025
There is a little bit more information that can be gleaned from Absurd’s recent post. The studio is currently developing an unnamed “story-driven action-comedy” game, around which the upcoming animation projects will focus. From the wording of the update post, it isn’t clear whether all 20 of these characters will necessarily be attached to this project, as games by Dan Houser’s studio are being developed alongside upcoming comic book series American Caper, which is set for release later this year, and ongoing podcast-based audio fiction series A Better Paradise.
It sounds like there will be a lot more revealed about the Absurdaverse as 2025 rolls on, but it’s not the only project the esteemed game developer is tied to. Dan Houser also made a huge investment in blockchain games studio Revolving Games in 2022 and serves as a member of its advisory board.
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Source: https://gamerant.com/rockstar-co-founder-dan-houser-studio-new-game-universe-absurdaverse/
