GTA 6 LIVE: Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser reveals why he left the studio

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser reveals why he left the studio

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has officially revealed why he left the studio.

Houser left Rockstar in 2020 and started up a new studio called Absurd Ventures along with Lazlow soon after. The two worked together for two decades at Rockstar.

When asked by presenter Kate Molleson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row why he left Rockstar, Houser said: "Because the projects are long and tough and take a long time to make.

"It can be a tough journey getting things at that scale with that many moving parts finished, you've got 450,000 lines of dialogue and equal number of parts of other things all trying to assemble itself and it's this huge production experience.

"That swallows all of your time for many years at a time and I didn't know if I had another one of those games in me."

Houser appeared on the show to speak about his new book A Better Paradise - Volume One: An Aftermath.

GTA Online update

Rockstar Games has shared an update about GTA Online.

A social media post said: "Set sail in A Superyacht Life this week and be rewarded with 5x GTA$ and RP in GTA Online.

"Begin your nautical adventures with 40 per cent off any Galaxy Super Yacht and Orion / Pisces owners can upgrade to the Aquarius for free."

Gameplay 'leak' account reveals truth about viral social media post

The account behind a GTA 6 gameplay 'leak' has revealed the truth about it after a social media post went viral, getting 8m views in 24 hours.

IGN reports a 'leak' posted by the ZapActu GTA6 account on X / Twitter showed one of the main characters Lucia walking in the rain. This has since been taken down.

The account also posted similar AI-generated clips which also had millions of impressions with people in the comments believing the footage to be real.

Responding to questions from IGN, ZapActu apologised and said it was an "experiment".

"[The videos were to] observe people's reactions and to demonstrate how easy it has become in 2025 to blur the line between reality and AI-generated content," they said.

"[We apologise] to anyone who felt frustrated, disappointed or misled by these posts. This was never done with bad intentions.

"It was a huge joke actually, I did it just to entertain the community. Sorry for the false hope lol."

In-game map update reaction

There has been more reaction in the GTA 6 Subreddit about the latest speculated in-game map, with the major change being the removal of the panhandle.

Redditor RogerRoger63358 said "I speak for everyone when I say..." along with an image signifying the previous version of the speculated map is better than the new one.

It's got 1.2k upvotes at the time of writing and others have been commenting with their thoughts.

OkYogurtcloset8120 said: "Not enough concrete evidence to support it. There never really was in the first place. If anything comes out to suggest there is actually a panhandle, the mapping community will add it back. Most of what you see here is still very speculative."

Absolud said: "Without the panhandle, it's too similar to GTA 5’s map, a mountain up top, lake in middle, a smaller town opposite to the city. I hope its different :/"

xcixjames said: "I hope it exists if for nothing else but to make the map look less like GTA 5's shape."

slop_drobbler said: "Totally agree. Panhandle is a far more interesting and unique map shape imo. I'm also hopeful there will be a smaller 'foreign' island off to the south. It will make planes and boats feel more worthwhile and fits the whole drug running theme, plus the idea seems like an evolution of GTA 5's Cayo Perico and Guarma from RDR2."

Little_Macaron6842 said: "Ngl I wish they never even included the panhandle because I knew people would be disappointed if they removed it again."

In-game map updated but gamers worry it's 'boring'

A community map aiming to piece together what the in-game GTA 6 map will look like upon release has been updated and there have been some pretty big changes.

The most noticeable of all is that the panhandle has been removed.

This was posted into the GTA 6 Subreddit by anli2132 and gamers have been commenting with their thoughts, with the majority being worried by the changes.

joeapril17th said: "Oh.. That's gore... That's gore of my comfort map..."

Valaxarian said: "I don't know man, it looked better with a panhandle. Now it looks kind of boring."

imnotslavic said: "My panhandle :("

LadyFamous2005 said: "Kind of wanted the panhandle. It was something different. Now just reminds me of GTA 5."

dodo-likes-you said: "Instantly less appealing."

To be clear, this is not the official map of GTA 6.

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser reveals truth about AI in gaming

Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser has revealed the truth about the extent to which artificial intelligence (AI) is currently being using by companies developing games.

Speaking on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch, Houser said: "We [at Absurd Ventures] are making a game set in the same world [as A Better Paradise] but not exactly the same story. We started work on that 18 months ago and that will be a few years in development.

"We are dabbling in using AI but the truth is, a lot of it is not as useful as some of the companies would have you believe yet. It's not going to solve all of the problems."

Houser also spoke about how he sees the gaming industry going moving forward.

"As with all things, it can either go somewhere really interesting or somewhere that gets overly focused on making money," he said.

"There's always that danger with any commercial art form that they get distracted by money but there's still a big ceiling creatively to make these living narrative experiences. I think both will win."

Houser spoke on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch about new book A Better Paradise - Volume One: An Aftermath which is out now through Absurd Ventures.