After years of speculation and theories, Rockstar games co-founder Dan Houser has finally explained why the studio canceled its PlayStation 3 exclusive spy game, Agent. The title was announced way back in 2009 during the now-defunct E3 event and was described by Rockstar Games as a “genre-defining” project. But it has now been revealed Agent went through five different iterations before eventually being canned by the studio.
After its reveal 16 years ago, very little was said about Rockstar's long-awaited PS3 spy game. Many speculated that the studio put the project on the backburner to allocate more resources to it Grand Theft Auto 5which has since become one of the most famous and best-selling video games of all time. In the build up to GTA 5s release, brands and shareholder meetings suggested that Agent was still very much alive, but the past few years have made it clear that Rockstar had no intention of ever returning to the title. Now, after all these years, fans have finally found out why.
Rockstar's founder explains why the agent was canceled
In 2021, Rockstar did Agents long, death official speculated and removed the title from their list of games on their website. However, there was no statement or comment from Rockstar as to why the spy game was canceled. Now, four years later, the studio's co-founder, Dan Houser, has sat down with Lex Fridman for a long interview, where Agents cancellation was briefly discussed. “We worked a lot on multiple iterations of an open-world spy game, and it just never came together,” Houser said, before clarifying that he was, of course, talking about Agent.
The developer goes on to explain it Agent had about five different iterations, but it never “found its feet” due to being an open-world game. Houser compares the concept to spy movies, saying, “They're very frenetic. You have to go here and save the world, you have to go there and stop that person getting killed,” he said. “An open-world game has moments like that when the story comes together, but for the most part it's much, much looser, and you're just hanging out.”
Ultimately, Houser reveals that Rockstar Games could never make the concept of an open-world spy game work, because it just didn't make sense. He then tells Fridman that the studio also explored the idea of a game centered around knights in the Middle Ages, but that also never went anywhere.
It looks like Rockstar has had some pretty interesting concepts over the years, but ultimately chose to continue developing sequels and prequels to their established IPs, such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead. That decision clearly paid off, as Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 215 million copies to date, while Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 77 million copies since its launch in 2018. Fans are now patiently waiting for Grand Theft Auto 6which will launch on May 26, 2026 and is expected to be one of the biggest video game releases of all time.
- Date founded
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December 22, 1998
- Head office
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New York, New York, USA
- CEO
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Sam Houser
