Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser has provided the best explanation yet for why the developer’s open-world spy thriller Agent fell by the wayside.
Agent is a long-lost spy game from the creators of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption that was announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2009, but has since disappeared. Rockstar never officially canceled the project, but photos leaked in 2015 showed some of his levels and although there was some hope left renewed trademarks, this was ultimately scrapped in 2018 AND its website was closed in 2021.
So what happened to the Agent? Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption writer Dan Houser, now at Absurd Ventures, has finally offered fans a detailed explanation in interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast. According to Houser, despite Rockstar trying to create multiple versions of Agent, the game was never made, and that’s because essentially an open-world spy game just doesn’t work.
“We worked a lot on multiple versions of an open-world spy game and never quite nailed it,” Houser began.
“There were about five different versions of it. I don’t think it would work. I came to the conclusion – and sometimes I think about it, sometimes I lie in bed and think about it – and I came to the conclusion that what makes them really good as movie stories is what makes them not work as video games. Or we need to think about how to do it a different way as a video game.”
The announced version of Rockstar Agent takes place during the Cold War in the 1970s, but Houser revealed that it is just one version of many Rockstar games that they have tried unsuccessfully to turn into a fun video game. Indeed, there was a version set in newfangled times that also didn’t go anywhere.
“That was one version,” he said. “There was another one that was set in the current time… we had so many different versions of this game, we worked with so many different teams.”
He continued: “Espionage, assassinations… I don’t know what it would be, because we never really… We never really got strong enough to even write a proper story about it. We did the early work when the world started working. It never really made it into any of them. And I think I know why.”
“Because in one of these movies, they’re very, very crazy and out of rhythm – you have to go here and save the world, you have to go there and stop this person from dying, and then save the world. In open-world games, there are moments when the story comes together. But for the big parts, it’s a lot more relaxed, you just hang out and do whatever you want. And I want freedom. I want to go out here and do what I want, and I want to go and do whatever you want. That’s why it’s good to be a criminal, because basically there’s no one telling you what to do. We’re trying to create an outside agency through these people, sometimes sort of forcing you into the story.
“But as a spy it doesn’t really work because you have to stay on top of it. So I think I doubt you can even make a good open-world spy game. A lot of things would work as open-world games, but I don’t know if spy does it.”
In 2023, former Rockstar Games CTO Obbe Vermeij said that pressure from the development of Grand Theft Auto 5 contributed to Agent ultimately switching studios before it was scrapped altogether.
“We really committed to this movie and worked on it for over a year. I remember working on the downhill ski chase scene with a gun,” Vermeij said of The Agent.
“The game wasn’t progressing as we expected. It was inevitable that eventually the entire company would have to get behind the next Grand Theft Auto. We tried to scale back the game, trying to get most of the development done before the inevitable call from New York came. We cut an entire level (Cairo, I think) and maybe even the space section.”
The Agent was developed as a James Bond-style spy thriller, earning it the codename “Jimmy” at Scottish studio Rockstar North, Jimmy being James’ Scottish nickname.
“The game was supposed to take place in the 1970s and be more linear than Grand Theft Auto with multiple locations,” Vermeij said. “There was the French Mediterranean city, the Swiss ski resort of Cairo, and at the end there was a large laser shootout in space. Classic James Bond. The atmosphere was very frosty.”
Rockstar was busy with other things, such hits as GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2released in 2013 and 2018 respectively. GTA 6 is scheduled to appear next year.
Houser further added that the rock star also “played with the concept of knights” after Agent’s death, “trying to create a version of the mythological game that could be fun.”
“I still like the idea, but I never took it very far,” he explained. “I never got around to writing anything. I just wrote a story and played around with some ideas. But I always thought I’d never do it, and then I kind of fell in love with it.”
Even though The Agent is dead, the promising IO Interactive movie 007: First Light will be released next year.
Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Wesley is the news director at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
