Grand Theft Auto: What Happened To Ken Rosenburg?

Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto series has featured some of the most memorable fictional characters. Its protagonists, like Vice City‘s Tommy Vercetti and GTA 4‘s Niko Bellic, have been etched into the annals of gaming history. Still, many of the franchise’s supporting characters have fallen into obscurity in recent entries despite their major roles in past GTA games. One of those characters is none other than the high-strung Vice City lawyer, Ken Rosenburg.

The attorney was first featured as the deuteragonist in GTA: Vice City, and he was later seen in GTA: San Andreas as a supporting character. Players were introduced to Ken as a shady Vice City legal practitioner who helps set up the infamous botched drug deal between the Vance and Forelli crime families, which kicks off the events of GTA: Vice City. Ken drives Forelli representatives Tommy, Harry, and Lee to meet with Victor Vance. The meeting is ambushed, which results in Ken and Tommy narrowly escaping with their lives. So how did Ken go from Tommy Vercetti’s trusted assistant to a non-existent character in the most recent GTA releases?

Ken is essentially GTA’s Saul Goodman from the AMC’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul series. He’s the head of the law firm K. Rosenberg & Co. that has specialized in helping criminal organizations establish their influence across the game’s fictional cities. Despite his involvement in the criminal underground, Ken has managed to survive all of these years and is technically still alive in the GTA universe. So what happened to Ken after Vice City and San Andreas?

GTA: Where Is Ken Rosenburg Now?

Following the failed drug deal between the Vance and Forelli families, Ken and Tommy remain close partners throughout most of Vice City‘s story, which takes place in 1986. Ken assigns Tommy several missions, as the two try to make a name for themselves in Vice City’s underbelly, but the two drift apart as the game’s narrative progresses. That’s largely due to Ken’s substance abuse problem that causes him to become increasingly paranoid and drives a wedge between his and Tommy’s friendship.

By the time the GTA: San Andreas story takes place in the early 1990s, Ken and Tommy’s partnership has effectively ended. Ken joins a rehabilitation program in San Andreas and longs for his glory days with Tommy, which is evident when he mentions Tommy in the game. The former lawyer is also disbarred but is still heavily involved with GTA‘s three mafia families, who all have a stake in Caligula’s Casino, which Ken manages. There are business disagreements between the criminal stakeholders of the casino, which Ken later enlists San Andreas protagonist Carl “CJ” Johnson to help him with.

The disbarred lawyer survives the events of both Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas and is still alive in the series’ universe. Ken is said to be 33 years old during Vice City in a BradyGames guide that was officially endorsed by Rockstar (via GTA Fandom). That means he would be 60-years-old during GTA 5, and he could eventually return if the rumored GTA 6 revival of Vice City does turn out to be true.

Source: GTA Fandom