GTA Creator Has Avoided GTA 6 While Making New Open-World Games

Published Oct 3, 2026, 11:50 AM EDT Tomas Franzese is the Weekend News Editor at Polygon, following and reporting on the latest goings-on in the gaming and entertainment spaces. During the week, you can find him working on Remastered, his newsletter about video game history and retro gaming, or contributing to GameSpot and other publications. Previously, Tomas was the Gaming Segment Lead at XDA and a Staff Writer at Digital Trends. Rockstar founder Dan Houser has avoided GTA 6's gameplay reveal while working on a new open-world game Image: Rockstar Games Sign in to your Polygon.com account While Dan Houser is best known as one of Rockstar's co-founders and for creatively spearheading the first five Grand Theft Auto games, he founded Absurd Ventures in 2023 to make new creative projects, including video games. He teased the first two games that we can expect from Absurd Ventures, confirming that one is a comedic open-world game. Despite his track record of working on great comedic open-world games, Houser surprisingly revealed that he doesn't play that kind of game anymore. He has even avoided watching the gameplay reveal of Grand Theft Auto 6, stating that he wants Absurd Ventures' first games to "find new things that haven’t been done before." What games is Absurd Ventures working on right now? In an Oct. 2 interview on Variety's Strictly Business podcast, Houser teased the two games. The first is "an open-world comedy which is trying to really lean into comedy and character memory," while the second is "a dystopian sci-fi about a video game development gone very wrong and about a rogue AI that discovered sentience." Absurd Ventures previously teased it was working with Smilegate on a AAA sci-fi game set in its A Better Paradise universe, while the more comedic game is set in the "Absurdaverse." An open-world game with comedic undertones certainly feels reminiscent of franchises like Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row. Despite that, Houser says he doesn't really enjoy playing the open-world competition that Absurd Ventures' first game will face. "I find when I play them, I can almost deconstruct the strengths and weaknesses of the team in real time and it’s distracting. I’m always thinking, ‘Well, their animation team is weak, but I think this game design is fantastic.’ And, ‘Oh, I can imagine that meeting when they discuss this feature.’ I’m not a game designer, I’m a sort of creative director. So I’m trying to always find new things that haven’t been done before, or that I can steal from older media, quite frankly." Essentially, Houser doesn't feel the need to play other open-world games because he wants to design one that feels fresh, and he will already be thinking too much about how the sausage is made if he does decide to check out a rival open-world title. It's also part of why he avoided the gameplay reveal for Grand Theft Auto 6, as he wants to "avoid stuff that’s going to distract or disrupt me creatively." Neither of Absurd Ventures' games has been officially unveiled or given a release window yet. That said, Houser teased that the Absurdaverse open-world game is something "that we’ll have more information on in the next few months."