Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption Writer Leaves Rockstar - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 September 2023 / 4,162 Views
Michael Unsworth, the Vice President of writing at Rockstar Games, has left the developer after 16 years, according to his LinkedIn page.
He is credited as a writer on the two Red Dead Redemption games, Grand Theft Auto IV and V, Max Payne 3, LA Noire, and more.
Unsworth is one of only three writers credited on the Red Dead Redemption series.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Considering that the quality of their writing has been by far the strongest aspect of Rockstar games for quite some time now, this is really bad news.
I'm sure all or most of the writing for GTA 6 is completed, so its bad news for Take Two, but good news for whatever new company he goes to.
I've honestly haven't been a fan of the writing at all since GTA 4. That was the last I've enjoyed it. RDR3 and GTA 5 I couldn't stand the story. I'm sure I'm in the minority though but maybe the changes will lead to something that's a little more my style when it comes to writing.
Especially since they already lost one of the 3 original RDR1 writers after the game shipped in 2010, Christian Cantamessa, who was also lead designer on RDR1. Only Dan Houser remains now from the RDR1 writing team.
Cantamessa went on to work on both of the Middle-Earth: Shadow of games, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is currently with Xbox's The Initiative working on Perfect Dark. Hopefully Unsworth goes on to do great things outside of Rockstar as well, honestly he was wasted there considering most of what they do these days is GaaS MP shit.
