Rockstar Games Co-Founder Leaving Company

Dan Houser, who founded the game studio alongside brother Sam in 1998, will officially depart in March.

Dan Houser, one of the four co-founders of Rockstar Games, is departing the game studio.

"After an extended break beginning in the spring of 2019, Dan Houser, vice president, creative at Rockstar Games, will be leaving the company," the studio wrote in an SEC filing submitted on Tuesday.

Houser's tenure at Rockstar will end on March 11. His brother Sam Houser’s role as president will remain unchanged, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, tells The Hollywood Reporter.

"We are extremely grateful for [Dan's] contributions," the company wrote. "Rockstar Games has built some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful game worlds, a global community of passionate fans and an incredibly talented team, which remains focused on current and future projects."

Houser, along with his brother Sam, Terry Donovan and Jamie King, founded Rockstar in 1998. The studio is best-known for its Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises, the former of which was responsible for the best-selling game of the last decade, 2013's Grand Theft Auto V. Red Dead Redemption 2, meanwhile, released in 2018, is the best-selling game of the past four years.

The company operates a number of subsidiary studios across the globe, including outposts in India, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada.

Houser has led the creative on Rockstar titles for two decades, credited as a writer on nearly every release in the company's history (he was head writer of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2) and executive producer on many others.

Rockstar has seen increased success in recent months, with the online components of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 hitting new all-time highs in number of active players over the holiday season.