Former GTA lead Dan Houser's new "AAA story-driven open world video game" and animated series unveils its main cast, featuring stars of 30 Rock and Billions

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After several years, Dan Houser, Rockstar co-founder and narrative lead on the GTA games, has provided some concrete details about new studio Absurd Ventures and its TV and video game project Absurdaverse. The central cast of the multimedia franchise has been revealed ahead of more news set to come during the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival in May.

According to a Variety report, Absurdaverse stars comedians Rachel Dratch, Dan Soder, Ari Matti, Annie Lederman, Yamaneika Saunders and Steph Tolev, though the entire project will have a full "cast of hundreds" across both an untitled animated series and "untitled original AAA story-driven open world video game project currently in development."

It seems like these actors' characters will recur across both the Absurdaverse TV show and game. We'll get better acquainted with them during the Netflix Is A Joke event, where a selection of shorts will give us a sliver of the Absurdaverse's tone.

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Going by character descriptions, we should expect Absurdaverse to have similar irreverent humor to the Grand Theft Auto games. Rachel Dratch is voicing a chain-smoking podcaster, for instance, and Dan Soder is a Chief People Officer who acts more "like a DJ." Samantha Alton is portraying an "insane MMA fighter," because there has to be one of those.

Absurdaverse's Netflix is a Joke event will also feature standup from Patton Oswalt and some of the announced cast, all of whom come from comedic backgrounds – with credits including Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and Billions.

Absurd Ventures plans to announce release windows and platforms "at a later date," implying we won't be getting any next month. But hey, at least we're getting something.

Houser published a novel and audio fiction project, A Better Paradise, tied into the Absurdaverse back in October 2025. Now it's coming in drips and drabs, but we're slowly seeing what he's been up to since leaving Rockstar in early 2020.

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Anthony McGlynnContributing Writer

Anthony is an Irish entertainment and games journalist, now based in Glasgow. He previously served as Senior Anime Writer at Dexerto and News Editor at The Digital Fix, on top of providing work for Variety, IGN, Den of Geek, PC Gamer, and many more. Besides Studio Ghibli, horror movies, and The Muppets, he enjoys action-RPGs, heavy metal, and pro-wrestling. He interviewed Animal once, not that he won’t stop going on about it or anything.

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