Dan Houser Confirms No Involvement in GTA 6 Story

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has confirmed that he was not part of the writers' room for Grand Theft Auto 6. Houser left Rockstar Games over half a decade ago, but many fans wondered whether he contributed to GTA 6 in some capacity before his departure — a question he has now addressed.

Houser, alongside his brother Sam (current president of Rockstar Games), has remained almost entirely out of the public eye since the late 1990s, preferring to let Rockstar's games speak for themselves. Outside rare statements, such as Sam's initial announcement of GTA 6 Trailer 1, the Houser brothers have garnered a reputation for secrecy. However, Dan abruptly exited Rockstar Games in February 2020, which, given his writing credits for 12 GTA games and both Red Dead Redemption titles, bred concerns among some fans.

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By Nick Rodriguez

GTA 6 Does Not Feature Any Trace of Dan Houser

The concerns centered around whether GTA 6 would be as strong on the story and world-building fronts as its predecessors without Houser's involvement. However, since GTA 6's development timeline suggests pre-production started before Houser left the studio, a lot of fans reckoned he could've contributed his writing chops to the game. That notion was recently debunked by Houser himself during a live in-person interview with IGN. Houser noted that he had written the "last 10 or 11" entries in the franchise and that the world has "had enough GTA" from him. "They're always a new story. It's not going to be a story I wrote or a character set that I developed, but I think it's going to be exciting," he added.

I wrote the last 10 or 11 [GTA games]. I think the world's probably had enough GTA from me. They're always a new story. [GTA 6 is] not going to be a story I wrote or a character set that I developed, but I think it's going to be exciting. The game will be great, I'm sure.

Though Houser admitted it would feel "strange" to play a new GTA game without knowing its full story, he remains confident that GTA 6 "will be great." From both GTA 6 trailers that Rockstar has released so far, the game seems no less potent than prior series entries in weaving a compelling story inside a well-executed parody of the real world. It was also during this interview that Houser spilled the beans on why Bully 2 never happened, stating that Rockstar Games was spread too thin with titles like GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire, and Max Payne 3 to take on another big project.

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GTA 6 is scheduled to launch on May 26, 2026, and it should be interesting to see how well the writing of Rockstar's first new game post Dan Houser's exit holds up. As for Houser himself, he's currently spearheading multiple new creative projects at Absurd Ventures, the multimedia company he founded in 2021. Absurd Ventures recently struck a publishing deal with Smilegate for an upcoming AAA sci-fi open-world action-adventure game that's currently in early development, and the studio is also set to release a new graphic novel dubbed American Caper this November.

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