Two years since Rockstar games co-founder Dan Houser filed a UK trademark for “Absurd Ventures in Games”, the company has launched a website with the tagline “Storytelling. Philanthropy. Ultraviolence.” There’s an accompanying promotional reel that’s currently selling vibes in place of products, with a promise to “polute minds and damage souls in every medium imaginable.
Absurd Ventures says its committed to “building narrative worlds, creating characters, and writing stories for a diverse variety of genres, without regard to medium, to be produced for live-action and animation; video games and other interactive content; books, graphic novels, and scripted podcasts.”
Clicking around on the site will bring up an eye that follows your mouse cursor, while computer code in the background decodes into ominous messages, but there’s no concrete statements about upcoming projects or initiatives.
It’s been two years of radio silence since the Absurd Ventures trademark was first registered in tandem with an LLC. Who knows, maybe Absurd Ventures is continuing in the tradition of Rockstar’s tight lipped approach to upcoming releases, but all this cryptic nonsense will hopefully lead to something more substantial than a weird music video.
Dan Houser’s contributions to Rockstar go well beyond being just a founder—he’s credited as a writer and producer on some of Rockstar’s most prestigious releases like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4. As of now, there’s nothing to go on beyond the aforementioned sizzle reel and hacker eyeball, but the cynical energy feels very much in keeping with Rockstar’s edgy vibe. It’ll be interesting to see what these “narrative worlds” wind up being, especially with such a big name behind them.
