Overview
- Speaking to The Guardian, Houser says the Grand Theft Auto games are not as good as Charles Dickens but are comparable in their approach to world-building.
- He describes the goal of open-world design as evoking the “all the world is here” feeling associated with Dickens, Zola, and Tolstoy.
- During Red Dead Redemption 2’s development, he binged Victorian novels, listened to Middlemarch on his commute, and aimed for a more novelistic script that captured a 19th-century sense of life and death.
- He links Grand Theft Auto IV’s darker tone to being single and miserable during its creation and to fears the studio might be shut down.
- Houser left Rockstar in 2020, citing the toll of lengthy projects like GTA V and RDR2, and his latest remarks offer context on his creative legacy rather than any new game plans.