Dan Houser Explains Why Rockstar's Spy Game 'Agent' Died: They Couldn't Make It a 'GTA'

News
Written By NLM Team

Turns out "open-world spy" is an oxymoron, and it only took them five tries to figure it out.

Remember Agent? It was that slick, Bond-style spy game Rockstar announced as a PS3 exclusive back at E3 2009. It was meant to be the next big thing, set in the 1_970s Cold War. And then... it just... vanished.

It became one of the industry's biggest mysteries, fizzling out into vaporware. Now, in a long-form interview with Lex Fridman, Rockstar co-founder and ex-writer Dan Houser has finally explained what killed it.

The reason? Rockstar realized that spies and open-worlds just don't mix.

The Problem With a Sandbox Bond

Houser explained that the game went through "about five different iterations," trying everything from a 70s setting to something more modern. After all that work, he concluded that the entire concept is fundamentally broken.

"I don’t think it works," Houser said, admitting he still lies in bed thinking about it.

His logic is actually spot-on. A spy story, like a James Bond film, is "very frenetic" and "beat-to-beat". The hero is always "against the clock," rushing to the next mission to save the world.

Now, imagine that. You're Agent. You get a call from M: "007, we have 10 minutes to stop the nuke!" And you respond, "Yeah, cool, but I'm going to spend the next four hours running over pedestrians and trying to land a motorcycle on a casino."

The entire narrative tension collapses.

Why Criminals Are Just Better

Houser contrasts this with Grand Theft Auto. A criminal protagonist is perfect for a sandbox because, as he puts it, "you fundamentally don’t have anyone telling you what to do".

If you, as Michael or Franklin, decide to go play golf or steal a jet, it's fine. It's just a criminal being a criminal. Your "on the job" (robbing banks) and "off the job" (causing random mayhem) are all part of the same morally grey lifestyle.

This has been a problem for them for a long time. Houser even said GTA 4's Niko Bellic was maybe too empathetic, which made it jarring when players used him as an "effective avatar in the open world" (Houser-speak for "psycho mass-murderer").

The Solution They Refuse to See

Houser's analysis of the problem is brilliant. It's also infuriatingly myopic.

He's describing a problem that only exists because Rockstar is seemingly incapable of thinking outside the one box they build: the open-world sandbox.

As one Reddit user, Iggy_Slayer, so elegantly put it: "So don't fucking make it open world. What a hard problem to solve".

And that's the real story, isn't it? Rockstar, the masters of the open world, would rather cancel a game after five attempts than, God forbid, make a more focused, linear spy thriller. They just had to make it GTA: Spies.

They are so married to their one, billion-dollar formula that they're blind to any other creative path. They even proved it again by trying to make a secret agent-themed GTA 5 DLC, which was "half-done" before they just... gave up on it.

It's a creative blind spot the size of Los Santos. They'd rather kill a cool idea five times than just try making a different kind of game.

You might also like

NLM Team
Previous

Flesh Made Fear: A 100% Achievement Guide for Masochists
Next

The ARC Raiders Workshop Grind: Your Guide to Not Being a Hobo