Rockstar Games Veterans Join Dan Houser's Mysterious Project [Update]
Lazlow Jones and Michael Unsworth have left Rockstar Games to join Dan Houser and his Absurd Ventures. The new company has already registered two titles.
Update
On the official profile of Absurd Ventures on X, the team announced the two products mentioned below. American Caper is a graphic novel telling the story of two American families living in a world of corrupt business, inept politics and crime. On the other hand, A Better Paradise is to be a 12-part composite radio play created in collaboration with QCode Media. Both ventures will launch in 2024.
Original news (November 29)
In March 2020, Rockstar Games parted with one of the studio's founders, Dan Houser. For more than 20 years, he co-created such best-selling series as Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption. In July 2021, Houser founded his own mysterious studio - Absurd Ventures. As it turns out, in the meantime, he was joined by two other Rockstar veterans.
Rockstar Games veterans join Dan Houser
The first developer is Jeffrey Crawford "Lazlow" Jones. He worked at Rockstar Games for almost 20 years (he left in 2020). Among other things, he was a writer and creative director, as well as co-president of the production department. His responsibilities included overseeing creative content, both audio and video (not just in GTA, but also RDR or Max Payne 3). He also created the popular character Lazlow Jones, host of many radio shows in subsequent GTA games.
The second veteran is Michael Unsworth. At Rockstar Games, where he was employed since 2007, he held the position of vice president of scriptwriting and made key decisions on plot and dialogues - including in the GTA, Red Dead Redemption series or L.A. Noire. At Dan Houser's new company, he is to be responsible for the storyline of future projects.
Interestingly, Unsworth has not made any announcement announcing his departure. On his profile on LinkedIn however, one can read that "he is part of the super-talented creative team at Absurd Ventures, where he is bringing to life exciting new IPs in a wide range of different media."
Dan Houser has registered two titles
What exactly will the Absurd Ventures do? In the middle of this year - at the slightly broader presentation of the company (we recommend watching the studio's "presentation" published at the time) - Houser revealed that he wants AV to write stories and/or scripts for video games, but also live shows, animation, books, graphic novels and podcasts. Meanwhile, the veteran has registered two titles: "American Caper" and "A Better Paradise". From their description, it seems that video games can be expected, but time will tell if this will be the case in reality.
Finally, AB is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, although the company is registered in the UK - as Absurd Ventures in Games. Its motto is "Finally - an American institution that everyone can hate."
