Rockstar Games Co-Founder Reveals Real Reason Why Agent Was Canceled

Fans for years clung to the faint hope of Agent nonetheless being launched by Rockstar Games. The Cold War shooter was set to increase on the corporate’s already stellar portfolio, however improvement stalled, and the sport was formally canceled after 11 years.

It’s uncommon to listen to both Rockstar Games co-founder communicate so candidly in regards to the gaming empire they created. In a three-hour chat, one co-founder—Dan Houser—defined in regards to the historical past of Rockstar, and the topic of Agent got here up.

Agent Was Canceled By Rockstar Games Because It ‘Wouldn’t Work’

Dan Houser sat down with Lex Fridman and opened up on all kinds of Rockstar-related matters and answered a few of the most burning questions we’ve all had for years.

Arguably, the one which received away for Rockstar Games was Agent. First teased in 2007, Agent was set within the Nineteen Seventies—throughout the Cold War—and also you had been to play a spy, getting embroiled within the deep-seated political world tensions on the time.

It was formally introduced in 2009, however that’s about all we received for the subsequent 10 years. Houser defined within the Fridman interview why Agent by no means panned out:

“We worked a lot on multiple iterations of an open-world spy game, and it never came together. Agent had about five different iterations. I don’t think it works, I concluded. I keep thinking about it sometimes, I lie in bed thinking about it, and I’ve concluded: What makes them really good as film stories makes them not work as video games, or I need to think through how to do it a different way as a video game.”

Interestingly, Houser defined that the general public notion of the sport’s 70s Cold War setting was just one model of Agent.

That was one of many variations. There was one other that was set in present [times]…we had so many various variations of this sport, we labored on it with so many various groups.”

After additional rationalization, Houser concluded with an attention-grabbing assertion: “I question if you can make a good, open-world spy game.”

You can take a look at the video beneath, and it robotically performs from the second Dan opens up on Agent.

It does convey up a great level. The closest factor in latest reminiscence is a sport that’s not even out but—007 First Light. IO Interactive’s spy thriller isn’t an open-world sport, but it surely does function semi-open sections. This may play into Houser’s level much more, that there’s an apparent disconnect between an open-world sport and the intense, race-against-time narrative a spy thriller often tells.

Do you assume Dan Houser is correct? Was Rockstar’s objective for Agent too bold? Is it too late for Rockstar or Houser’s new firm (Absurd Ventures) to provide it one other go? Let us know by way of the Insider Gaming Discord Server.

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