Rockstar’s VP of Writing, With Credits on GTA 5 and Others, Reportedly Leaves After 16 Years

Rockstar Games vice president of writing Mike Unsworth has reportedly left the Grand Theft Auto VI developer after 16 years. Unsworth’s LinkedIn profile was updated to indicate the veteran developer had left Rockstar.

“Mike is an accomplished writer who spent over 16 years working for Rockstar Games as a creative lead on some of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful video game franchises of all time, most notably Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption,” his profile states.

Unsworth has credits on most of the Rockstar big hits including Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5, Max Payne 3, and L.A. Noire.

Mike Unsworth was involved with many of Rockstar’s biggest hits.

Unsworth joined Rockstar as a senior creative writer in 2007 before stepping up as writing director in 2019. He then served 2 years as VP of writing before his apparent departure. IGN has reached out to Rockstar Games for confirmation.

His involvement with Rockstar’s upcoming projects is unclear, and with GTA 6 still rumored to appear in the near future, it’s possible that he could still get at least one more writing credit at the renowned studio.

Rockstar itself has been in the news following a high-profile hack that led to leaked footage from GTA 6 being released to the public. It was recently confirmed that the audacious attack was perpetrated, at least in part, by two British teenagers using an Amazon Fire Stick while on bail for a hack against Nvidia.

Want to read more about Rockstar? Check out why Rockstar is working with a GTA 5 roleplay server team as well as details about Red Dead Redemption’s new Switch and PS4 versions.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.