While Rockstar Games is gearing up for the inevitable official reveal of the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI, it looks like they’ll be doing it without an employee who was an integral part of their recent history. Michael Unsworth, who was the Vice President of Writing at Rockstar Games, appears to have left the company after 16 years of working there. This was reflected and immediately spotted on his LinkedIn account where it shows that he worked at Rockstar until 2023. Normally, if an employee is still at their respective company, no specific end year or date would be shown on their resume, but Unsworth’s file suggests that he is no longer there.
As you can see in the post above, as well as the link to his account, Unsworth had some pretty major contributions to some of Rockstar’s biggest IPs over the years. It’s important to note that neither Unsworth nor Rockstar has made any official comment on his potential departure, but as of this writing, it appears that the longtime company veteran is truly no longer at the place he helped grow exponentially. Keep in mind that this was spotted over the weekend, and isn’t usually how news of departing employees take place at major AAA studios. It’s possible that we’ll have an official announcement later in the week.
As we already mentioned, Unsworth’s body of work speaks for itself. He was one of the primary writers of Rockstar’s biggest projects, all of which have gone on to be critically acclaimed, with Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption, and Red Dead Redemption II being the highlights. All four of those titles in particular have made Rockstar, and in turn their parent company Take-Two, a plethora of revenue, with Grand Theft Auto V arguably being the most successful media release of all time. Wherever Unsworth goes now is anyone’s guess, but whoever takes him in will have gained a valuable asset in creative writing for their project.