Red Dead Redemption writer joins Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser’s studio

Red Dead Redemption series writer Michael Unsworth has joined Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser’s Absurd Ventures studio as head of story and creative management.

Absurd Ventures was officially unveiled back in June, marking Houser’s first high-profile video game project since departing Rockstar – following an “extended break” – in 2020.

Absurd describes itself as a studio focused on “building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a diverse variety of genres” that span a variety of mediums – with the studio specifically calling out live-action, animation, video games and other interactive content, books, graphic novels, scripted podcasts, and more.

As spotted by BeGeek, Rockstar’s former vice president of writing Michael Unsworth – who co-wrote both Red Dead Redemption games, and has contributed dialogue to the likes of LA Noire, GTA 4, and GTA 5 – joined Asburd in October, having departed from Rockstar this August after 16 years with the company.

Unsworth isn’t the only Rockstar veteran to have joined Houser at Absurd Ventures, either; former writer and producer Lazlow Jones – who left the GTA maker in 2020 – has been with Absurd since June 2021, where he’s serving as executive producer.

There’s no word yet on what Absurd is working on, but the studio’s website has a bunch of abstract nonsense to peruse and ponder while we await further details.