Rockstar Games co-founder and lead writer on Grand Theft Auto 4, Dan Houser, has admitted that he originally wanted to end the game by killing off Niko Bellic.
Although Arthur Morgan is widely considered to be Rockstar's all-time best protagonist, that honour used to belong to GTA 4 anti-hero Niko Bellic. When GTA 4 released, Niko's darker and more human storyline put him at the peak of Rockstar's storytelling, and Red Dead Redemption is really the only game from the studio to come close.
Niko Bellic's story in GTA 4 is already the most tragic and depressing in all of Grand Theft Auto, since both of the game's endings see him losing someone he loves. As it turns out, though, Niko almost had a much worse ending that he was only saved from due to the game's open-world design.
Yesterday, Rockstar Games co-founder and GTA 4's lead writer, Dan Houser, appeared on the Lex Fridman Podcast to talk about his time working at Rockstar. While talking about Red Dead Redemption and its sequel, Houser and Fridman discuss what it was like killing off the main playable character and having them replaced with another character....
