After a rough year that saw around 45% of Ascendant Studios’ staff laid off, former Rockstar founder, Dan Houser and his studio Absurd Ventures, has officially teamed up with former staff of Ascendant Studios to create a new studio named Absurd Marin. The San Rafael based group will reportedly be led by Ascendant Studio founder and director, Bret Robbins.
When asked back in February of this year what went wrong with the release of Ascendant Studios’ only title, Robbins said, “…We absolutely got lost in the noise. And that was unfortunate, because we pushed the date out a bit in order to get a good polish pass done, to get performance better. Although the game was better, the timing was worse.” Immortals of Aveum saw a year full of massive release and found itself sandwiched between Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield while releasing the same week as Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon.
Dan Houser left Rockstar officially in March of 2020 and founded Absurd Ventures in June of 2023. Houser and Absurd Ventures have made it known they want to embrace multiple storytelling mediums as opposed to sticking to single one. The company has since seen the release of an audio narrative listed as a Podcast on streaming services titled, A Better Paradise. The series just released its final episode of its inaugural season August 19th. The next project in line is a graphic novel entitled American Caper and is set to release its first story before the end of 2024.
Absurd Marin is developing an adventure game with led by its narrative and a new, unannounced IP. A spokesperson for the company has been quoted saying, “about 20 developers from the core team behind Immortals of Aveum…will continue to staff up further as development progresses on the project”. The Absurd Marin team will work separately from the rumored development of a game on the Absurd Ventures side based in the universe of A Better Paradise.