Rockstar’s Agent, a stealth action game set during the Cold War, was teased for a couple of years before finally being officially revealed during Sony’s 2009 E3 press conference, as a PS3 exclusive. The game then seemingly went radio silent, while Rockstar maintained its trademark on the title for quite some years afterwards. Eventually, the trademark was abandoned in 2018, signalling the end of any shred of hope of ever seeing it.
Now, in 2023, a former Rockstar developed by the name of Obbe Vermeij had published a blog post detailing some of what it was like working at Rockstar North during some of its most essential years, including the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. Unfortunately, the Vermeij decided to remove the post after a negative reaction from Rockstar itself, but thanks to IGN we can still see the comments specifically surrounding Agent and its eventual fate.
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“We really got going on this one and worked on it for over a year. I remember working on a downhill skiing chase scene with guns for instance,” Vermeij wrote, explaining that the impending Grand Theft Auto V, a game which would obviously prove to be Rockstar’s biggest and most important project to date, meant Agent was pushed to the side as the entire company rallied behind GTA.
“The game wasn’t progressing as well as we’d hoped. It was inevitable that eventually the whole company would have to get behind the next Grand Theft Auto. We tried to cut the game down in an attempt the get the bulk of it done before the inevitable call from New York would come. We cut out an entire level (I think Cairo) and maybe even the space section.
“It became clear that it was going to be too much of a distraction for us and we ditched it. I think it was handed over to another company within Rockstar but never got completed,” says Vermeij, who likened the Agent project to more of a linear, mission-based James Bond vibe than the open world epics the company is known for.
“The game was to be set in the 70s, be more linear than Grand Theft Auto with a number of locations. There was a French Mediterranean city, a Swiss ski resort, Cairo, and at the end there would be a big shootout with lasers in space. Classic James Bond. The vibe was very cool.”
While Rockstar never outwardly cancelled Agent, the lapsed trademark and shuttering of the game’s official website all but speak to its demise. And now, of course, it’s gearing up to show off the first ever look at its next big thing, Grand Theft Auto 6.
