I was a guest on Lex Friedman's podcast has become Former Rockstar writer Dan Houser. He explains why the spy game Agent was never released.
According to the developer, the authors could not combine an interesting spy plot with an open world. Houser notes that in agent films, every minute matters and the hero is always in suspense because he may not have time to save the world. In the open world, this result is very difficult to achieve.
We've had a lot of different versions of this game. But we were never able to create a full storyline for it. And I think I know why. Because in spy movies everything is crazy – the main character needs to go somewhere and save the world. In open world games, there are moments where the story ties together. But most of the time it's much more free – you just go out and do what you want. That's why being a criminal works so well, because basically no one tells you what to do. But this doesn't work in a spy game because you have to race against time.
Rockstar's Agent was announced in 2009. It was supposed to be exclusive to the PlayStation 3 console. After that, there was no news about the game until the project's trademark was declared abandoned in 2018.
