Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser explained why the studio never released Agent, the open-world spy action game announced in 2009. According to him, the developers tried several times to find an approach to the project, but ultimately concluded that they could not properly execute its concept.
In an interview with IGN, Houser stated that two or three different teams worked on Agent, but none of them could achieve the desired result.
We tried to make an open-world spy game with two or three different teams, but we could never quite get it right, which is why it never came out. In the end, we decided we couldn’t figure out how that game should actually be made. Other people can try, but personally, I think it’s hard.
According to him, one of the main problems was the conflict between the traditional structure of spy stories and Rockstar’s game design principles. In spy movies and TV shows, characters constantly move between distant corners of the world, carry out secret missions, and operate under tight time constraints. However, such an approach did not mesh well with an open world where players are expected to explore the environment on their own and take their time progressing.
I think the dynamic of a spy story pushes you forward in time, whereas in games, you want events to be more drawn out. Additionally, one of the features of spy cinema is moving from location A to a completely remote location B. But in an open-world game, that kind of experience doesn’t work very well.
Houser added that the team tested various ways to implement the concept and even came up with several good ideas, but they never managed to assemble them into a cohesive game.