Dan Houser Leaving Rockstar Makes Us Wonder About ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’

It takes a lot of hardworking folks to make a video game, especially the absolutely massive open-world games that Rockstar makes. But for better or worse, inevitably most people associate those huge teams with a handful of faces, and for Rockstar those are the faces of co-founders the Houser brothers. However, we recently learned that one of those faces, Dan Houser, is leaving the company. And while we don’t want to jump to conclusions, that does make us wonder about the future of the studio, especially a hypothetical Grand Theft Auto VI.

News of Dan’s departure came with a recent Take-Two SEC report. It’s treated with a matter of fact quality that at least suggests the publisher isn’t too worried. Dan has been on break ever since the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 over a year ago. Now that break is just becoming a full-time retirement from Rockstar.

Although this may be shocking news to hear at first it’s not too surprising once you think about it. Sam might arguably be the more famous brother (he was played by Daniel Radcliffe after all) Dan Houser’s deep influence on Rockstar is undeniable. He’s co-written nearly every Grand Theft Auto game going back to its early top-down days and his writing credits also include Bully, Max Payne 3, and the original Red Dead Redemption. If you’re looking to go out on top, there aren’t many higher peaks in video games than those.

At the very least, as far as high-profile Rockstar departures go, we don’t expect this one to be nearly as nasty as the lawsuit filed by jilted GTA designer Leslie Benzies.

Grand Theft Auto V continues to have unreal success on this generation of consoles, but that was technically a last-gen port. Red Dead 2 was Rockstar’s only game built for the ground up for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. With the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X right around the corner, tens of millions of people are waiting to see open-world urban crime sprees on the most powerful consoles yet.

But what will GTA VI even be? Sam Houser sticking around should mean Rockstar will still feel at least somewhat like itself. The real question is should Rockstar even bother with a big new single-player game despite the fact the real reason GTA V burns up monthly sales charts seven years after release, outselling the much newer Red Dead 2 even, is the multiplayer of Grand Theft Auto Online?

Rockstar announces whatever it wants whenever it wants. We could see GTA VI tomorrow or four years from now. And we’ll definitely still get it no matter what. Enjoy your riches, Dan!



from Geek.com https://ift.tt/2UuWwcF
via IFTTT

0 comments:

Post a Comment