Rockstar Video games co-founder and Grand Theft Auto author and producer Dan Houser is tough at work on a brand new recreation together with his new studio, Absurd Ventures. And we predict we all know somewhat extra about what that recreation appears to be like like, together with its setting, which is a brand new sci-fi universe the studio is creating known as A Higher Paradise.
Houser introduced his new endeavor final 12 months, revealing that Absurd Ventures can be “constructing narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing tales for a various number of genres, with out regard to medium, to be produced for live-action and animation; video video games and different interactive content material; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.”
The studio was seemingly based means again in 2021, with Houser serving as co-founder and director.
Earlier this week, a number of shops seen that current job openings for Absurd Ventures have been on the lookout for builders on “an open world action-adventure recreation” it at the moment had within the cooker. One itemizing particularly specified “best-in-class fight” and “third-person motion throughout a number of recreation modes,” and requested builders conversant in a mixture of each melee and taking pictures motion mechanics, “non-combat types of motion gameplay (driving, mounts, climbing, traversal, platforming, and so forth),” Unreal Engine 4 or 5, and dealing with co-development companions.
Then, yesterday, Absurd Ventures individually introduced a launch date for its audio fiction sequence set in its new sci-fi universe, A Higher Paradise. The sequence launches on June 10 and can span 12 episodes, however buried within the launch is the information that Absurd Ventures can also be making video video games in the identical expanded universe. “Along with launching Quantity One of many A Higher Paradise audio sequence, Houser, Lazlow [Jones], and the Absurd Ventures workforce are in numerous levels of improvement on a number of initiatives set within the A Higher Paradise universe, together with extra audio fiction seasons, in addition to tv and online game titles.”
Sounds an terrible lot like that is the universe for the brand new open world action-adventure recreation, proper? An insider supply affirmed our suspicions that this was the case, which suggests we are able to infer somewhat extra in regards to the new recreation. In accordance with the official web site, the universe is “set within the close to future” and follows “the ill-fated improvement of an formidable however addictive digital game-world undertaking led by inventor and psychologist, Dr. Mark Tyburn.”
Because the superior software program they developed started delivering surprising and disturbing outcomes, the workforce fell aside underneath unusual circumstances and the undertaking was deserted. The sport world and the super-intelligence inside have been discarded, left dormant and undiscovered. Till now.
Admittedly, we will not say but how all this matches along with the transmedia franchise Houser and Absurd Ventures appears to be constructing. And we equally do not know the way it’s all related to the audio sequence — do we have to take heed to all 12 episodes to grasp this eventual recreation? Who is aware of!
For now, it is all hypothesis, however Houser has fairly the resume to again himself up right here. He was a author and/or producer for nearly each single Grand Theft Auto recreation, in addition to each Crimson Useless Redemptions. And he was an government producer on L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3, and a author on Bully. Houser resigned from Rockstar means again in 2021, and appears to have been quietly cooking on this new sequence ever since. His brother and fellow Rockstar co-founder, Sam Houser, remains to be on the firm as its present president.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.
