Rockstar's Agent: Why the GTA 4 Follow-Up Never Happened

Remember Agent? The PlayStation-exclusive spy game Rockstar announced at E3 2009 that was supposed to be the next GTA? Yeah, it never came out. And now Dan Houser is finally explaining why.

Speaking to IGN, Houser said the cancellation shouldn't be a total shock because he's worked on "a bunch of games that never came out." Rockstar tried with two or three different teams to make Agent, an open-world spy game, but they just "could not get it right." Ouch.

"And it never came out. We concluded that it was not a game we were ever going to figure out how to make. Other people can try, but I personally think it's hard," Houser said. He explained that great spy movies like James Bond work because they take you all over the world, but "that's not an experience in an open-world game that really works." So they tried lots of things, built great elements, but the pieces never came together in a full package.

Agent was reportedly set in the '70s, and images have surfaced over the years showing what Rockstar had planned. Back in 2009, then-Take-Two president Ben Feder told GameSpot that Agent was being positioned as the next Grand Theft Auto. "It's the A team working on an AAA title," he said. "I think the subject matter, the characters, the story, the environment, the background–all the elements are there. It's such a rich environment to play in." Sounds promising, right?

But across the industry, games get canceled all the time. Blizzard has said it cancels 50% of the games it starts. Agent got more attention because of Rockstar's profile. The studio never gave Agent a release date, but it would have followed up 2008's Grand Theft Auto 4. Instead, Rockstar North moved on to 2013's GTA 5, and now they're set to release GTA 6 on November 19.

So there you have it: even Rockstar, the studio behind some of the biggest games ever, can struggle to crack a new idea. It's a reminder that not every ambitious project makes it to shelves, no matter how talented the team.

What do you think? Were you hyped for Agent back in the day, or are you just glad Rockstar focused on GTA instead? Let us know in the comments!