Rockstar Video games co-founder Dan Houser’s new studio has landed a writer for its first recreation, which remains to be untitled however is described by its creators as a “AAA, open-world, sci-fi action-adventure recreation” set in an authentic universe. Korean writer Smilegate and Houser’s Absurd Ventures introduced Wednesday that the 2 corporations have teamed as much as launch the Rockstar co-founder’s first post-Grand Theft Auto recreation.
“Absurd Ventures was set as much as inform new and totally different sorts of tales, and to create what I hope are attention-grabbing and compelling authentic experiences. This new recreation is a chance to go someplace completely totally different and to take gamers on a wholly new journey,” Houser stated in a press release. “I’m excited to be occurring this journey with the wonderful staff that we’re constructing right here at Absurd Ventures and am grateful that we’re partnering with Smilegate who actually perceive and help our imaginative and prescient.”
Absurd Ventures’ sci-fi recreation is about in its homegrown A Higher Paradise universe, which is described thusly on the studio’s web site:
Set within the close to future, A BETTER PARADISE tells the story of the ill-fated improvement of an bold however addictive digital game-world venture led by inventor and psychologist, Dr. Mark Tyburn.
Because the superior software program they developed started delivering sudden and disturbing outcomes, the staff fell aside below unusual circumstances and the venture was deserted. The sport world and the super-intelligence inside have been discarded, left dormant and undiscovered. Till now.
Whereas the A Higher Paradise universe has not but appeared in a recreation, Absurd Ventures did launch an audio fiction sequence below the model titled A Higher Paradise Quantity One: An Aftermath, and plans to publish a novelization of the IP’s story in October. Absurd Ventures beforehand teased its bigger Absurdaverse, which can be distinct from (or embody) the A Higher Paradise. Suffice it to say, Absurd Ventures has been laying groundwork for its fictional properties whereas it grinds away on precise recreation improvement.
Talking of, Smilegate and Absurd Ventures stated in Wednesday’s announcement that the A Higher Paradise recreation is in “early improvement,” and is being written by the artistic staff of Houser, Lazlow Jones, and Michael Unsworth. These three former Rockstar Video games creatives labored on a number of GTA and Purple Useless Redemption video games throughout their tenures at that studio. Improvement at Absurd Ventures is being led by studio head Greg Borrud, beforehand GM of Niantic and co-founder of Pandemic Studios.
Rockstar Video games introduced in February 2020 that Dan Houser was leaving the corporate he co-founded, following an prolonged break that got here after Purple Useless Redemption 2’s 2018 launch. Houser began Rockstar Video games along with his brother Sam in 1998. Rockstar is finest recognized for the Grand Theft Auto and Purple Useless Redemption sequence, in addition to titles like Bully, Manhunt, and L.A. Noire. Dan Houser served as lead author of Grand Theft Auto 5 and Purple Useless Redemption 2, two of the most important video games, by gross sales, of the earlier decade. Houser revealed his Absurd Ventures in 2023, promising to “create new IP throughout all platforms and for all codecs.”
Smilegate was based in 2002, and publishes video games Crossfire and Misplaced Ark.