Dan Houser Discusses GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and Rockstar Games in New Interview

Dan Houser appeared on a podcast hosted by Lex Fridman to discuss open-world game development, writing, and his past work. Houser is currently promoting Absurd Ventures current projects and its recently released debut comic, following his first on-camera interview at a convention and subsequent public appearances.

During the conversation, Houser shared details regarding several major video game franchises, unreleased titles, and his personal influences in film, literature, and gaming.

Grand Theft Auto

• He did not work on GTA 6, which leaves him with mixed feelings about working on something new versus parting with a project he spent two decades on.
• The cancelled GTA 5 story expansion Agent Trevor was about halfway done.
• He praised Ned Luke for his performance in bringing Michael to life.
• The overall darkness of GTA 4, including its immigrant story written by an immigrant, may have been influenced by a difficult period in his life when he felt lonely, unhappy, and uncertain about staying in America while the studio dealt with the Hot Coffee scandal.
• He considers Niko the franchise’s most interesting protagonist, though he wanted to kill him off at the end before deciding it would not work as a video game ending.
• He likes CJ from GTA: San Andreas because of Young Maylay’s performance, which made the character feel human.
• GTA: Vice City drew heavy inspiration from the 1983 film Scarface and the 1984–1990 television series Miami Vice.
• The series succeeds because new installments are released infrequently but introduce meaningful innovation.
• The franchise is unlikely to move to a setting outside the United States because the gameplay relies heavily on weapon availability.

Red Dead

• During the development of RDR 2, the company faced immense pressure, two game delays, a ballooning budget, and a story centered on a cowboy with tuberculosis.
• The tuberculosis plot point originated from the Houser brothers’ grandfather, who survived the illness before antibiotics existed, noting that only three out of 35 people in his hospital ward survived.
• The concept for an open-world cowboy game (RDR 1) arose immediately after Red Dead Revolver, though the team was busy and the actual project did not take shape until 2005 or 2006.
• The script for Red Dead Redemption I initially struggled to come together while he worked on Grand Theft Auto IV. The breakthrough came during a vacation with his pregnant girlfriend, now his wife, where he wrote several scenes after beginning to take care of a family, which influenced the protagonist’s writing.
• In late 2008 or early 2009, during a meeting with lead designer and co-writer Christian Cantamessa, they decided on the narrative ending for John Marston’s story despite the implementation difficulties.
• He emphasized the importance of actors Rob Wiethoff and Benjamin Byron Davis, who portrayed John and Dutch in both games.
• Gavin exists within the game world, but Nigel will never find him.
• He described RDR 1 as a more traditional western and the Red Dead series as an anti-western or eastern where Wild West cowboys move back east toward civilization.

Rockstar Games

• He lived in Colombia at age 25 after making poor life choices, where local bandits with machetes attacked him on a beach, causing him to flee on foot and by taxi before receiving an email from his brother Sam to leave for New York to found the company.
• The unreleased game Agent explored multiple settings, including a 1970s Cold War backdrop and a modern-day setting, but an open-world format did not fit because a spy has specific missions to save the world immediately, unlike a criminal with complete freedom.
• Rockstar once considered developing a game about knights and mythology, but it remained only a concept.

Movies

• Between The Godfather Part I (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), he prefers the second film for its split-era structure, Little Italy scenes set near Soho where he lived, and its Ellis Island and Sicily segments.
• He prefers Casino (1995) as a Las Vegas film, while viewing Goodfellas (1990) as a film that transformed filmmaking and inspired The Sopranos (1999–2007) by portraying criminals as ordinary people.
• He praised True Romance (1993) for having what he considers the best script ever written, credited to Quentin Tarantino.
• He named Come and See (1985) as the greatest war film, with Apocalypse Now (1979) in its original cut as a slightly less serious alternative.
• His favorite westerns are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Wild Bunch (1969).
• His favorite comedy of the 21st century is The Office (2005–2013).
• His favorite science fiction film is Blade Runner (1982).

Books

• At age 17 to 18, he focused on Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), and at age 20, he turned to the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
• Five books that influenced him at different life stages are Winter Holiday (1933) by Arthur Ransome, Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë, Tender Is the Night (1934) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Thin Red Line (1962) by James Jones, and Middlemarch (1871) by George Eliot.
• The three greatest books about World War II according to him are The Thin Red Line (1962) by James Jones, Life and Fate (1959/1980) by Vasily Grossman, and The End of the Affair (1951) by Graham Greene.

Video Games

• He developed a true love for video games only after starting to make them himself.
• He considers Tetris (1989) on Game Boy the greatest game of all time despite its lack of story and pure gameplay focus.
• He expressed admiration for Todd Howard’s work at Bethesda and the world of The Witcher.
• He compared The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023) to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, calling it unreal yet perfect as a game and film.
• His son enjoys playing Sea of Thieves (2018).