Rockstar Video games co-founder and Grand Theft Auto author and producer Dan Houser is difficult at work on a brand new sport together with his new studio, Absurd Ventures. And we expect we all know a bit extra about what that sport seems to be like, together with its setting, which is a brand new sci-fi universe the studio is creating referred to 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 method again in 2021, with Houser serving as co-founder and director.
Earlier this week, a number of shops observed that current job openings for Absurd Ventures have been in search of builders on “an open world action-adventure sport” it at the moment had within the cooker. One itemizing specifically specified “best-in-class fight” and “third-person motion throughout a number of sport modes,” and requested builders accustomed to 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 collection set in its new sci-fi universe, A Higher Paradise. The collection launches on June 10 and can span 12 episodes, however buried within the launch is the information that Absurd Ventures can be making video video games in the identical expanded universe. “Along with launching Quantity One of many A Higher Paradise audio collection, Houser, Lazlow [Jones], and the Absurd Ventures crew are in numerous phases of improvement on a number of tasks set within the A Higher Paradise universe, together with further 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 sport, proper? An insider supply affirmed our suspicions that this was the case, which implies we are able to infer a bit extra concerning the new sport. In response to 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 challenge led by inventor and psychologist, Dr. Mark Tyburn.”
Because the superior software program they developed started delivering sudden and disturbing outcomes, the crew fell aside underneath unusual circumstances and the challenge 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 linked to the audio collection — do we have to take heed to all 12 episodes to grasp this eventual sport? 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 sport, in addition to each Pink Useless Redemptions. And he was an govt producer on L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3, and a author on Bully. Houser resigned from Rockstar method again in 2021, and appears to have been quietly cooking on this new collection ever since. His brother and fellow Rockstar co-founder, Sam Houser, continues to be on the firm as its present president.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Bought a narrative tip? Ship it to [email protected].