On March 11, 2020, Dan Houser, one of the co-founders of Rockstar, left. Faced with the departure of founder Dan Houser, many Rockstar fans were puzzled and shocked, and they were also worried about the future of "GTA6". After all, Dan Houser was Rockstar's vice president of creativity and chief screenwriter. There are too many classic masterpieces from his hands, such as "GTA3", "GTA: Vice City", "GTA: SA", "That Game 5", "Red Dead Redemption", "Red Dead Redemption 2", "Bully", "Max Payne 3", etc.

For Dan Houser's departure, there have been shocking insider exposures recently, which may give a reasonable explanation. Obviously, Dan Houser's departure is related to "GTA6". It is reported that Dan Houser has written four stories for "GTA6", but they were all cancelled by the parent company Take Two because they were "too dark".

The following is the inside story sorted out by the promoter GTA6 Countdown

"Project Americas"-Dan Houser's unfinished epic

In 2014, the initial version of "GTA6" was codenamed "Project Americas", which was led by Dan Houser himself and planned to create a serious and dramatic crime thriller. This version tells the intertwined fates of three protagonists:

An elderly but upright policeman, in order to save his son who is deeply addicted to drugs, gradually becomes a participant in organized crime;

His son, a devout Cuban-American youth, tries to break free from the shackles of the drug world;

And the right-hand man of a Colombian drug lord, who is responsible for smuggling drugs to the United States through "Vice City" and attempts to establish his own empire in North America.

The plot was too dark, politically sensitive and heavy. After several script rewrites, it was finally rejected and cancelled by Take-Two in 2016.

Restart attempt: three variations, three failures

This version, codenamed "Project Americas", began development in 2014, but was canceled and restarted in 2016. The first restart took 18 months to develop and was canceled in mid-2018

After the cancellation of "Project Americas", Rockstar tried to restart development and reconstructed the direction at least three times:

The first restart (2016-2018)

This version retains the dual protagonist setting, the protagonist is a female police officer and a drug dealer's right-hand man, and the dark age is reduced

The heroine is the daughter of a police officer who died in the line of duty in Vice City. In order to avenge her father, she goes undercover in the gang and walks a tightrope between the dual identities of police and criminals;

The hero is crazy and violent, and is described as the "new Trevor", who goes from the bottom to the core of the drug empire.

This version was canceled again in mid-2018 after 18 months of development.

Second reboot (early 2019)

The second reboot was only developed for a few months. The plot is similar to the first reboot, but this time: the grief-stricken female police officer is replaced by an African-American man, a veteran who has just been released from prison and is involved in the underworld. This version was also not approved.

With all three scripts rejected, Dan Houser chose to take a long vacation in the spring of 2019 and finally officially left Rockstar in 2020. The news of this departure was also confirmed by the parent company Take-Two in a press release.

New direction: Sam Houser took over, and "GTA6" was finally determined to be Jason and Lucia

At the end of 2019, the fourth version of the plot led by Sam Houser was finally approved by Take-Two and fully launched in early 2020. This version is inspired by the romantic outlaw story of Bonnie and Clyde, the most notorious criminal couple and bank robbers in American history. The protagonists are Jason and Lucia, a pair of lovers and criminals who have taken Vice City by storm.

Dan Houser: Leaving Rockstar and starting "Absurd Ventures"

After leaving Rockstar, Dan Houser founded a new studio "Absurd Ventures" in 2021, vowing to "get rid of corporate interference and pursue creative freedom." The studio is currently secretly preparing multiple cross-media projects, which is seen by the outside world as a new chapter in Houser's creative career.