The Agent: Official Thread

[Benstamania]

That would be awesome. This game has been my Last Guardian.. A game I knew was probably there but doubtful I'd ever see.

 

[zenith16]

I was expecting this to be bumped up when e3 was actually happening . man they sure have been quite . in most other case's when some has be quite this long it's e3ther been cancelled or become something else entirely. it would be cool if it showed up this e3. I was gonna put up if it actually showed.

I'm also hoping for news on the tell tale marvel game.

 

[zenith16]

1 hour ago
The Trademark For Rockstar Games’ Long-Gone PlayStation Exclusive AGENT Has Finally Expired
Rockstar Games' Agent was announced way back in June 2009 and we haven't heard anything new about the game ever since, and it looks like it will stay that way, as Take-Two has seemingly abandoned the trademark.Read more


source: GameFragger.com: Video Game News, Reviews, Trailers and more!

 

[psylockolussus]

Just make Gta VI...

 

[psylockolussus]

Rockstar Agent Devs Share Crazy Story From Their Trip to Cairo

 

[Havok83]

Another year, another update

Rockstar's Official Agent Website Disappears - IGN

 

[psylockolussus]

The game was pretty much dead when nothing new came out in the early days of the ps4. I think it was supposed to be a ps3 eXclusive.

I don't feel like anything about the cancellation as, it sounded like another open world crime game from Take Two; like Grand Theft Auto, L.A. Noire and Mafia.

 

[Havok83]

UPDATE!

New details on Rockstar Games' Agent and Zombie cancelled games - RockstarINTEL

New details on Agent, a cancelled title by Rockstar Games have emerged. We also have learned more about a zombie survival game too. These new bits of info come from a former Rockstar Games employee who has shared a lot of inside stories on the development of several games. This month, Obbe...

rockstarintel.com

New details on Rockstar Games’ Agent and Zombie cancelled games

The Agent we never got
A stronger feeling of change was felt once GTA San Andreas had been finished. Developers at Rockstar North used San Andreas to test spy gameplay inside of the game such as a car transforming into a submarine plus a hang glider. Leslie Benzies “was keen to do something along those lines” in terms of a spy. These developments are said to have impressed both Rockstar San Diego and New York. A James Bond-like game was already being worked on at Rockstar San Diego at this time.


Vermeij says that the Rockstar North team was divided into two. GTA IV was of course next up so one half started on that blockbuster whereas the remaining half began on Agent. Its codename was Jimmy. Why was this? Jimmy was the Scottish version of James Bond. Simple enough! Fun fact, Jimmy as a name is still used by Rockstar for map loading and a AES key identifier.

We’ve known for some time now that Agent was set in the past, around the 70s and Obbe Vermeij says as much.

The game would also function differently to the previous GTA titles in terms of the game world. It would not be a grand open world game but feature a few distinct places in a linear fashion. In terms of locales, we would have visited Cario, a Swiss ski resort, one French Mediterranean city and a space shootout with lasers. Quite the turn of events!

Vermeij shared a section he worked on involved the ski resort where it would be a downhill chase shootout. Below is concept art likely from the Swiss ski location.

Washington D.C. was another location some developers mentioned in a report that we covered back in 2019 here. When scouting Cario, police detained some Rockstar Games developers.

Classic James Bond. The vibe was very cool.

Obbe Vermeij
Many Rockstar Games fans had hoped for Agent but it was not to be despite work had been underway for over 1 year. Apparently progression wasn’t far along enough and GTA IV became all hands on deck.

There were attempts to get it out of the door before Rockstar New York, who call the shots, issued a call to work on GTA 4. Obbe, recalls with a hazy memory, the entire Cario level was cut and even the space station section. The devs got moved onto GTA IV and Agent was a distraction so the left it. As reported in 2019, the game was moved to Rockstar Leeds but again it was shelved.

Despite being cancelled, the game remained on Rockstar Games’ website for quite some time. The Agent trademark was ultimately abandoned in 2018 though.

Obbe Vermeij’s blog is rich in new inside information; it is a treat and worth a read.

To keep up to date with every Rockstar Games news update, make sure to check back to RockstarINTEL and sign up to our newsletter for a weekly round-up of all things Rockstar Games.

 

[psylockolussus]

It sounds cool. Maybe 1 day they could revisit the concept later on, with a different title.

I don't think I've played any spy game that is very cinematic and story driven. The recent Hitman games look good, i like the sense of freedom gameplay wise, but the cutscenes of Hitman II wasn't really cinematic and the story of those games aren't really on par with the story driven games I've played in the ps4.

 

[Havok83]

It sounds cool. Maybe 1 day they could revisit the concept later on, with a different title.

I don't think I've played any spy game that is very cinematic and story driven. The recent Hitman games look good, i like the sense of freedom gameplay wise, but the cutscenes of Hitman II wasn't really cinematic and the story of those games aren't really on par with the story driven games I've played in the ps4.

LOL...Metal Gear Solid is. The subtitle to every game is literally Tactical Espionage Action/Operation and they've all been very cinematic and story driven

 

[psylockolussus]

Hmm I don't really see that as "Spy" after playing MSGV. When I meant Spy ala James Bond feel and those other Hollywood Spy movies. MSGV felt like more military soldier game to me.

 

[Havok83]

well there are different type of spies and MGSV was just one of many games in the series and quite different from the earlier ones. Past games dealt with stealth, sneaking into a facility, getting intel, using gadgets, etc.. like a typial spy thriller

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't personally see it as a Spy game. A stealth game, yes. A spy game, not really. I didn't feel James Bond/being a spy when I played Metal solid Gear V. I got that with the Hitman (2016/18) games, but cutscenes weren't cinematic.

 

[Havok83]

Is MGSV the only game you've playued in the series bc you keep going back to that. Most of the games in the series are not like that as it went in a different direction in terms of how it was approached. James Bond also isnt the only type of spy out there. You are being short sighted with that an only focusing on the Hollywood version of what that movie series did but its more expansive than that and Snake himself is like a James bond/Rambo/Plisken hybrid in many ways. The entire series is build on espionage, double agents (heck triple agents too) and infiltrating and uncovering secrets

 

[psylockolussus]

Is it the only game I've played from the series. Two if we count Ground Zeroes. But then Ive seen the other four games, it doesn't feel/look like a Spy game. Its giving military game to me with emphasis on stealth.

And you don't need to keep proving that its a Spy game because its not going to change my mind. When I think of Spies, i think of James Bond and Hitman, not Metal Gear Solid.

 

[Havok83]

Agent Update!

Dan Houser reveals why Rockstar’s canceled spy game Agent never worked despite five revisions​

Dan Houser reveals why Rockstar’s canceled spy game Agent never worked despite five revisions

Former Rockstar co‑founder Dan Houser told the Lex Fridman Podcast that Agent, the studio’s long‑teased Cold War spy game, underwent five major iterations but never came together because the spy genre’s beat‑driven, time‑sensitive storytelling clashed with Rockstar’s open‑world design principles.

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Former Rockstar co‑founder Dan Houser told the Lex Fridman Podcast that Agent, the studio’s long‑teased Cold War spy game, underwent five major iterations but never came together because the spy genre’s beat‑driven, time‑sensitive storytelling clashed with Rockstar’s open‑world design principles.

During his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast number 484, former Rockstar co-founder and writer Dan Houser gave some insight into the studio’s canceled spy game Agent, which never made it to release, despite undergoing five different revisions.

Speaking in the interview, Houser candidly addressed the elephant in the room, saying, “We worked a lot on multiple iterations of an open-world spy game, and it never came together.” While he didn’t say it outright, Houser was referring to Rockstar Games’ Agent.

He further added, “It had about five different iterations. I don’t think it works, I concluded – and I keep thinking about it sometimes, I sometimes lie in bed thinking about it – and I’ve concluded that what makes them really good as film stories makes them not work as video games. We need to think through how to do it in a different way as a video game.”

For the uninformed, Rockstar gave the world a sneak peek into Agent at Sony’s E3 2009 press conference. Agent was supposed to be a PlayStation exclusive title, a Cold War-era thriller set in the 1970s that would throw players into counter-intelligence operations, espionage, assassinations, and exotic locales, pretty much promising a James Bond-style shooter.

However, the 1970s setting was just one of the many prototypes House was referring to, with others exploring more contemporary settings. Houser further revealed:

I don’t know what it would’ve been because we never got it enough to even do a proper story on it. We were doing the early work where you get the world up and running, and it never really found its feet in either of them. And I sort of think I know why.

The game evolved into an internal demo shortly after the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004. Unfortunately, the project stalled. Leaks of Agent, which surfaced from 2009 to 2010, emerged in 2011 and 2015. Without any proper footing or direction, the team was reassigned to Grand Theft Auto V around 2015.

The real problem apparently was how Rockstar Games could have seamlessly meshed the spy genre’s rigid structure with an open-world design philosophy. Houser further mentioned:

Those films are very, very frenetic, and they’re beat-to-beat. You’ve got to go here and save the world. You’ve got to go there and stop that person from being killed, and then save the world.

An open-world game does have moments like that when the story comes together. But for large portions, it’s not a loser, and you’re just hanging out and doing what you want.

I want freedom, I want to go over here and do what I want, and I want to go over and do what you want, and that’s why it works well being a criminal, because you fundamentally don’t have anyone telling you what to do.

This put Rockstar in a particular pickle: they wanted to create an open-world experience with the freedom to do much more, something Agent didn’t resonate with, given its hypothetical linear approach.

Houser further explained, “We do try and create external agency through these people, kind of forcing you into the story at times. But as a spy, that doesn’t really work because you have to be against the clock. So I think for me, I question if you can even make a good open-world spy game.”

Rockstar never really announced Agent’s cancellation until the studio removed it from its upcoming titles list in 2021, freeing up headroom for developers to work on Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[psylockolussus]

A spy game from Rockstar would have been cool.