Rockstar Games’ former VP of creative, Dan Houser, left the company in 2020, but he’s still a wellspring of knowledge about Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, both of which he was a lead writer on. Houser recently shared his insights into both game series as well as a few of Rockstar’s unrealized projects.
During a nearly three-hour interview with Lex Fridman on YouTube, Houser touched GTA 5’s uncompleted DLC that would have featured Trevor as a secret agent.
“It never quite came together, and it was never finished,” recalled Houser. “It was about half done when it got abandoned. But I think if that had come out, [we] probably wouldn’t have gotten to make Red Dead 2. So, there’s always compromises … I like making the stories. For me, I love the model of GTA 4 when you had the extra stories coming afterwards or Red Dead 1 when you had the zombie pack coming afterwards. I like just doing these extra things. So, I would’ve personally liked to have done more of that in that company.”
Houser related that a James Bond-style game called Agent was also in development, but the team couldn’t get the idea to work in an open-world environment without sacrificing the rising tension of a spy thriller. He added that the team hadn’t even set a time period or a story before the project was shut down. Similarly, a Rockstar game about Knights in medieval times didn’t make it out of development.
“[We were] sort of trying to do a version of a mythological game that could have been fun,” said Houser. “And you know, [I] still love that idea, but never went very far with it. Knights would be going really far back in history … It never got to writing any of it. Just did some backstory and played around with a few ideas. But it was always something I thought I would never do, and then kind of fell in love with it a little bit.”
Fridman also asked about two of the enduring mysteries from the Red Dead Redemption games: The man looking for his friend Gavin, and the shadowy individual who knew John’s actions. Houser explained that the Gavin story wasn’t supposed to have a resolution before sharing this theory on the shadow man.
“He was meant to be a kind of manifestation of your shadow, your karma, the devil, somewhere,” said Houser. “And then we built out his backstory over time … And so in Red Dead 2, you could interact with him again and. .. or not really interact with him. But he was there and he was meant to be something I suppose any creative is scared of, an artist who’s kind of sold his soul to the devil. And that slowly revealed itself. He knows what you’re up to. What’s never really made clear is, does he know this about everybody? Like, is he following you, or is he able, because of the pact he’s made with evil forces, able to do this for everybody? I don’t think we necessarily ever clarify that. He’s certainly able to do it for you.”
Although Houser wasn’t involved in the creation of GTA 6, he has no doubt it will break records upon its debut.
“I would assume it will because it’s so anticipated, and anticipation is the best driver of early sales, as we saw with GTA 4 versus Red Dead Redemption 1,” added Houser. “You know, GTA 4 far more anticipated, sold much better early on. So I would assume [GTA 6] will sell really well. That was never my definition of success, but you certainly wanted to make money. “
Houser recently released a novel, A Better Paradise Volume One: An Aftermath, which is now available on Amazon.
