Dan Houser Is Making an Open World and Skipping the GTA VI Extended Look

Dan Houser's new games are an untitled open-world comedy and a dystopian sci-fi about a rogue AI that does not like itself, and Variety on October 2, 2026 put both pitches at Absurd Ventures. Your Vice City job does not change.

Houser, Rockstar co-founder and former head writer, described the two titles on Strictly Business. Variety says he left Rockstar in 2020, formally launched Absurd Ventures in 2023, and longtime writing partner Jeffrey Lazlow Jones is involved. The untitled games sit in a slate that also names A Better Paradise, American Caper, and Absurdaverse.

An Open-World Comedy and an AI That Hates Itself

Variety printed Houser's line on the comedy.

One is an open-world comedy which is trying to really lean into comedy and character memory, and that we'll have more information on in the next few months,

More detail on the comedy, in the next few months, is the only clock he set. Players who watched Los Santos reset after a Fleeca rampage will hear character memory and picture a world that keeps the joke. GTA V does not do that unless a script holds the grudge, and RDR2 camp talk did. That picture is a theory.

The other game, in Variety's account, is a dystopian sci-fi game about a development gone very wrong and a rogue AI that discovered sentience but does not like itself, because two people who did not like each other made it. Expect a broken studio, not another Vice City score.

Insider Gaming maps the pair to an Absurdaverse action-comedy and an A Better Paradise adaptation, its own call, not a quoted line. A May 2024 IGN report described older combat listings and Dr. Mark Tyburn's abandoned game-world with a dormant super-intelligence, partly from an insider, and that page may be the sci-fi or a changed project.

He Will Not Grade Them Against GTA VI

Houser told Variety he has not seen the 27-minute GTA VI extended look Netflix presented in August, and he will try to avoid it because he is making open-world games and does not need to see what other people are doing. The official GTA VI page is Jason and Lucia in Leonida and Vice City. Rockstar Newswire is on a preorder and an album.

Insider Gaming's account of the podcast has him judging GTA work by integrity, pride, and whether it felt fresh, and saying that not being the biggest thing ever would not make him a failure. Players graded Fleeca, Cayo, and Paleto by size, a test he already declined.

Watch whether the joke survives after the wanted level falls. It will not be in the VI footage he is skipping.

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