Dan Hauser talks Victorian novels, Red Dead Redemption, and redefining open-world games | games

IIt’s hard to think of a more modern entertainment format than the open world video game. These sprawling technological endeavors, blending narrative, sociability and complete freedom to explore, are uniquely immersive and potentially endless. But do they represent a completely new idea of ​​storytelling?

This week I caught up with Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder and lead writer on Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, who was in London to talk about his new company, Absurd Ventures. He’s working on a bunch of interesting projects, including the novel and podcast series A Better Paradise (about a large-scale online game that goes tragically wrong), and a comedic adventure set in an online world called the Absurdaverse. He told me that 15 years ago, he was doing press interviews for Grand Theft Auto IV expansion packs when he had a revelation about the series.

“I was talking to a journalist from Paris Match, a very cultured Frenchman – and he said, ‘Well, the Grand Theft Auto games are quite like Dickens’ games.’ And I said, God bless you for saying that! But then I thought about it, well, they’re not as good as Dickens, but they’re similar in that he builds the world. If you look at Dickens, Zola, Tolstoy or any of those authors, there’s a sense that the whole world is here – that’s what you try to get in open-world games, it’s a twisted perspective, where you’re looking at an interesting society in some way With another.

It was fun to talk about this idea with Houser, because I share his view that there are striking similarities between Victorian literature and modern narrative video games. The vast amount of descriptive detail in these works was intended as a form of virtual reality, conjuring up an accurate image in the mind of readers years before cinema was invented. There’s also this feeling of complete immersion. The first time I read Jane Eyre a decade ago, I was amazed by the depth of the writing, how much information we were given about the main character’s thought processes and how much freedom we were given to explore them.

Houser also saw a structural similarity in Grand Theft Auto. “There’s the same sense of slightly diffuse storytelling that you find in the big 19th-century novels from Thackeray onward,” he says. “It’s kind of a shaggy dog ​​story that comes together at some point. These books are also very realistic, in a way. They don’t jump back and forth in time. They’re quite physical in that sense, and the games are very physical.”

For Houser, this interplay between Victorian literature and game design came to a head with the production of Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar’s brilliantly elegiac tale of revenge and redemption in late 19th-century America. “I became immersed in Victorian novels because of that,” he says. “I listened to the audiobook of Middlemarch on my walk to and from the office every day. I loved it.” He had trouble finding the right tone for the game’s dialogue, but by incorporating Middlemarch, Sherlock Holmes, and Pulp Fiction Cowboy, he found it.

“I wanted it to feel, from a writing perspective, a little more novelistic,” he told me. “I thought this was a way to do something new story-wise — and the game was going to look so beautiful, and the art was so strong, and I thought it would be better for the story to really set it up. We were trying to fill out the three-dimensional lives of the characters, and also capture the feeling of life and death in the 19th century, which was so different from our own lives.”

I found it heartening that Victorian literature had such a profound influence on Rockstar’s hugely successful adventures. The gaming industry can be inward-looking, with each new game a slight variation on its successful predecessor, and each story an amalgam of the same set of fantasy and sci-fi texts. There’s nothing wrong with drawing on Tolkien, Akira, or Blade Runner, but it’s always helpful to expand that literary outlook. I’m looking forward to seeing how Houser’s new projects redefine the idea of ​​open-world games for the second quarter of the 21st century, but part of me wishes he was putting his best effort into a sprawling Victorian novel adventure.

Forget Pride and Prejudice and zombies, maybe it’s time for Middlemarch and machine guns?

What are you playing?

It’s been 18 years since the last Metroid Prime game. People have been born, started school, taken their exams, and suffered their first hangovers in the time since I last saw a mysterious planet through the visor of Samus Aran. So there’s a lot of riding Metroid Prime 4: Beyond For fans of Nintendo’s most badass (and overlooked) hero. I reviewed it this week and I’m happy to say it’s not a disaster. It’s uneven, old-fashioned, and a little weird, but it’s also very atmospheric, beautiful to look at and listen to, and a lot of fun. It’s almost astonishingly disinterested in the conventions of modern game design, and I found it quite charming. Kiza MacDonald

Available on: Nintendo Switch/Switch 2
Estimated playing time: 15-20 hours

What are you reading?

• Sega fans rejoice: Paramount Pictures has announced Screening for the movie Sonic the Hedgehog (or should that be intermittent). According to Variety, the project currently titled “Sonic Universe Event Film” will arrive on December 22, 2028 – a year and a little after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 4, which is scheduled for release in March 2027. Could it be a new adventure for a Sonic Shadow the Hedgehog competitor? I may be alone, but I’m hoping for a big cat hunt.

• Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s independent regulator of data protection and information rights Investigate in The 10 most popular mobile gameswith a focus on children’s privacy. According to the organization’s blog, “84% of parents are concerned about their children being exposed to strangers or harmful content through mobile games.” This comes after the recent controversy surrounding Roblox.

• As someone who receives approximately 200 press releases a week about the genre, I appreciate Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s deep dive into rock music’s seemingly unstoppable rise. Roguelike. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell talks to developers about why people love games built around the three elements: procedural generation, (character) progression and permadeath.

What to click on

Question block

Keza answers this week’s question from a reader Tom:

“I was reading a recent batch of questions about non-violence games and it got me thinking: Are there any games that keep violence on the table but give you other options for completing it? While I loved Red Dead Redemption 2, it frustrated me that the only option to resolve most situations was with a firearm. I’ve seen a lot of amusing videos where players try to complete innately violent games without bloodshed, so there seems to be an appetite for pacifism.”

I have vivid memories of playing the original Splinter cell On Xbox as a pacifist: Only knock out and hide enemies, never kill them. It took me Foreverbut it was a legitimate option offered by the game. Steampunk masterpiece Deshonored It is also known that the game’s sequel allows you to finish the whole thing without killing anyone. You can use your supernatural powers to infiltrate and manipulate people instead; However, if I remember correctly, the game would be much harder if you avoided violence.

In fact, most stealth games offer peaceful experiences, although a few specifically reward you for saving lives. The only exception to this is the great adventure comedy talethe game that finally lets you talk to monsters. I’m also pretty sure it would have been possible, albeit very difficult, to play both originals He falls games (and maybe Fallout: New Vegas too) without killing people, just mutants – if you have a high enough Charisma stat to talk your way out of every sticky situation.

We’re still looking for your End of Year Game of the Year nominations – let us know Email us at pushbuttons@theguardian.com.