Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser spared GTA IV’s Niko Bellic so fans could “play forever,” and instead killed Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston

Dan Houser — Rockstar Games’ co-founder and the studio’s former lead writer — has said he originally considered killing Niko Bellic at the end of Grand Theft Auto IV. The team ultimately shelved that plan because of technical constraints, later returning to the idea when crafting Red Dead Redemption’s emotionally devastating finale.

In a discussion with Lex Fridman, Houser explained that the structure of Rockstar’s open-world games complicates permanently removing a playable protagonist. Their design encourages players to keep exploring and finishing side content even after the main narrative concludes, which makes a definitive death for your avatar difficult to reconcile with a 100% completion mindset.

Houser said the studio’s philosophy had long been to let players inhabit a character and continue living in that world — wrapping up side activities and returning at leisure — so killing the primary playable character felt at odds with how their games functioned.

That concept, however, found its place in Red Dead Redemption. In that story, John Marston is ultimately killed by the government after pursuing his former gang — a narrative choice Houser said was necessary for the story’s emotional impact, even if it posed a substantial technical risk for the team.

Rockstar solved the gameplay problem by shifting control to John’s son for the game’s epilogue, allowing the world to remain playable while preserving the narrative consequence. That same device was later echoed in Red Dead Redemption 2. Houser described the move as a major technical gamble that ultimately paid off.

Speculatively, a similar approach could prevent post-story continuity issues in other multi-protagonist titles. For example, with Grand Theft Auto VI reportedly using dual protagonists, a betrayal or fatal outcome for one character could be handled by letting players continue as the surviving protagonist, preserving both story weight and post-game activity.

Houser has also admitted that the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 was stressful and fraught with budgetary and scheduling difficulties, making the process far from enjoyable despite the game’s success.