“I doubt you can make a good open-world spy game” – Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser finally explains why Agent never happened
Blog Andrew Joseph 03 Nov , 2025 0
Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser offers his best explanation yet as to why the developer launched an open-world spy thriller agent Left on the roadside.
Agent is the long-lost spy game from the developer of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, which was announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2009 but has since disappeared. Rockstar never officially canceled the project, but Leaked images from 2015 showed some level of performance, although due to Renew trademark, This was eventually scrapped in 2018 and Its website shuts down in 2021.
So, what happened to the agents? Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption screenwriter Dan Houser (now at Absurd Ventures) has finally given fans a detailed explanation Lex Friedman Podcast Interview. According to Houser, while Rockstar tried multiple versions of Agent, the game never came together because, fundamentally, an open-world espionage game just didn't work.
“We worked a lot on multiple iterations of an open-world spy game, but it never came together,” Houser begins.
“It had about five different iterations. I didn't think it was going to work. What I came to the conclusion – and sometimes I've been thinking about it, and sometimes I'm lying in bed thinking about it – I came to the conclusion that what makes them really great as movie stories doesn't work as a video game. Or we need to think about how to do that as a video game in a different way.”
The version of Agent that Rockstar announced was set in the Cold War in the 1970s, but Houser revealed that it was just one version of what Rockstar had tried and failed to turn into an interesting video game. In fact, there was a version set in modern times that didn't make it either.
“That's one of those versions,” he said. “There's also one that's set in the present… We have a lot of different versions of the game and we're working with a lot of different teams.”
He continued: “Espionage, assassinations… I didn't know what it was going to be because it never really… we didn't even have enough time to do a proper story. We were just doing the early work on getting the world going. It never really took hold in any of it. I think I know why.
“Because in one of the movies, they're very, very crazy and they're constantly beatdown – you have to go here and save the world, you have to go over there to stop that guy from getting killed and then save the world. Open-world games do have moments of storylines like that. But for the most part, it's a lot looser and you're just hanging out, You just do what you want to do. I want to be free. I want to be here and do what I want to do, and I want to do what you want to do, and that's why being a criminal works because, fundamentally, there's no one telling you what to do, and we're trying to create external agency through these people that sometimes forces you to participate in the story.
“But as a spy, that doesn't really work because you have to race against the clock. So I think for me, I doubt you can make a good open-world spy game. So a lot of things could work like an open-world game, but I don't know if spies can.”
Former Rockstar Games technical director Obbe Vermeij said that in 2023 Development pressure on Grand Theft Auto 5 led Agent to eventually switch studios before being scrapped entirely.
“We really started working on it and worked on it for over a year. I remember, for example, shooting a downhill ski chase scene with guns,” Vermeij said of the agents.
“The game wasn't going as well as we had hoped. Inevitably, eventually the entire company had to get behind the next Grand Theft Auto. We tried to pare back the size of the game, trying to get most of the work done before the inevitable call from New York came. We cut an entire level (I think it was Cairo) and maybe even the space part.
“It became clear that (Agent) would be a distraction for us, so we scrapped it. I think it was handed off to another company within Rockstar, but it was never completed.” Half of the Rockstar North team is working on GTA 4 DLC grand theft auto 5while half were set to work on The Secret Service before the significance of its premiere series took over.
Agent, a James Bond-like spy thriller, was codenamed Jimmy, James' Scottish nickname, at Rockstar North Studios in Scotland.
“The game is set in the 1970s and is more linear than Grand Theft Auto, with multiple locations,” Vermeij said. “There's a French Mediterranean city, a Swiss ski resort Cairo, and there's a laser tag battle in space at the end. Classic James Bond. The vibe is really cool.”
Rockstar has been busy with the hit GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2released in 2013 and 2018 respectively. GTA 6 will launch next year.
Hauser went on to say that Rockstar also “played with the concept of knights” after the agent's death, “trying to make a version of the mythological game that might be interesting.”
“Still liked the idea, but never got too far,” he explains. “It was never necessary to write anything. Just do some backstory and try out some ideas. But it was always something I thought I'd never do, and then kind of fell in love with it.”
Although Agent is dead, IO Interactive's hit James Bond 007: Dawn is set to be released next year.
Photograph: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Wesley is IGN News Director. Find him on Twitter: @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or privately at [email protected].