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| Agent | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Agent |
| Developer(s): | Rockstar North |
| Publisher(s): | Rockstar Games |
| Release date: | TBA |
| Platform(s): | PlayStation 3 |
| Engine: | RAGE |
| Series: | Agent |
| Protagonist: | Unknown |
| Mode(s): | Singleplayer, Multiplayer (unconfirmed) |
| Date takes place: | 1970s |
| Location: | TBA |
| Downloadable content: | TBA |
- «The game, like anything from Rockstar North, is going to be very, very cool.
It’s going to push the edge, it’s going to be genre-defining and it’s going to be a whole new way of experiencing videogames that we haven’t really seen before.»
- ―Ben Feder, president of Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive.
Agent (stylized as AGEnT) is a video game «currently» in development by Rockstar North for the PlayStation 3.
Agent was first announced by name in 2009, as a PS3 exclusive title developed by Rockstar North — the creators of Rockstar’s acclaimed Grand Theft Auto franchise. Called a future «AAA» title by former Take-Two president Ben Bender, no further information of the game was released since it was first revealed.
The game’s current status for today (2021) is completely canned, and was killed off silently. The game is no longer on Rockstar Games website, as they put the final nail in the coffin.
Contents
- 1 Gameplay
- 2 Plot
- 2.1 Setting
- 3 Development
- 3.
1 Announcement - 3.2 Current status
- 3.
- 4 Exclusivity
- 5 Gallery
- 5.1 Screenshots
- 6 See also
Gameplay[]
According to Rockstar Games, Agent is a stealth-action based game, possibly based on the game play of Manhunt, another title from Rockstar.
Plot[]
Setting[]
The game is set during the Cold War and will take players into «the world of counter-intelligence, espionage and political assassinations», according to a Rockstar press release. Rockstar has yet to reveal any details regarding the setting for the title other than the fact that it will be set in the late 1970s.
Development[]
Announcement[]
Sony announced that Rockstar was working on a new franchise for the PlayStation 3 in July 2007 but details of the project, including its title, were not announced until June 2009 during the Sony press conference at E3. Sam Houser, founder of Rockstar, described Agent as a game the company had been wanting to make for some time, and had set out to create a unique experience for the player.
Ben Feder, former president of Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, professed his belief that the game could achieve the same level of success as the Grand Theft Auto series, given that its development is being overseen by Rockstar Games founders Sam and Dan Houser. Speaking with GameSpot on the E3 2009 show floor, Feder explained the decision to develop the game solely for Sony’s console as stemming from the increased support from Sony as an exclusive title rather than developing the game across platforms.
Current status[]
Take-Two confirmed that, as of May 2011, Agent is still in the development stages.
On 24 May 2011, Take-Two confirmed that Agent was still in development at that point in time. During a fiscal earnings conference call, Take Two answered a listener’s question about Agent saying that it is indeed still in development. On 1 August 2012, when asked about Agent at Take Two’s Q1 2013 report, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said «we haven’t announced anything about that title».
With the announcement of the PlayStation 4 on 20 February 2013, there was an expectation that Agent may have moved to become an exclusive PlayStation 4 title. However, there was no mention of the game at the launch, but developer Rockstar had signed up to support the PlayStation 4. When asked if Agent was still a PlayStation 3 title after the press conference of the PlayStation 4 reveal during a round-table media session, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida said «You are asking the wrong person. I have some knowledge, but I’m not in a position to talk about it.»
Rockstar Games have also launched an official website for Agent but says nothing more than ‘coming soon’. The game has also been added to the list of Rockstar’s games with social club compatibility.
In December of 2016, Take Two Refiled its trademarks for Agent, but as of current writing (April 2017), Agent’s status is Unknown.
Agent as well as it’s website has since been removed from Rockstar’s list of games as of September 2021.
Exclusivity[]
Agent was initially planned as a Playstation 3 exclusive game. When asked about the exclusivity of Agent at E3 2011, CEO Jack Tretton said that he was unsure and that it was a decision for Rockstar Games to make.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Agentscreenshot.jpg
Agentscreenshot2.jpg
See also[]
- The Agent Wiki
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Rockstar finally puts Agent to rest
(Image credit: Rockstar North)
Audio player loading…
We all knew it wasn’t happening but Rockstar has put the final nail in the coffin of Agent: the game has been listed on Rockstar’s official site since announcement but has now, like a troublesome contact, simply disappeared . An open-world spy game first spoken of in 2007 before being announced in 2009 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, Agent was an ongoing and fairly high-profile project—Sony execs continued to face questions about it for years—but the news dried up in the early 2010s.
There were signs of life afterwards, and the project was certainly not vaporware. A Polygon report in 2019 revealed that Agent was, in fact, the second iteration of another game called Agent, which was being developed in the mid-2000s by Rockstar San Diego. What became of that? «I don’t know how much of it was us trying to convince them or Sam [Houser, Rockstar supremo] knew he wanted to do Red Dead anyway, but somehow the decision was made to just shelve Agent and take all the work that we’d done and start Red Dead Redemption,» a former team member says.
(Image credit: Rockstar North)
With San Diego on Red Dead Redemption from 2005 onwards, Agent—which was apparently conceived as part-homage to The Professionals and James Bond—was handed over to Rockstar North, with rumours that Rockstar Leeds was also involved at one stage.
Another source in that Polygon article described the transition thus: «Rockstar North got a hold of some ideas and stuff. They did a little test demo that blew anything that we had done out of the water.
Once we saw the demo from Rockstar North—I think they had a car that turned into a submarine or something like that, and some other stuff—we were like, ‘Holy smokes!'»
(Image credit: Rockstar North)
When things on Agent went quiet, fan optimism was kept alive by Take-Two re-registering the game’s trademark in 2016 (and the game still having a presence on Rockstar’s site). But the publisher then allowed it to lapse in late 2018, which was more-or-less the last rites for Agent, before today’s news killed off any lingering hopes.
There were various leaks of concept art and some in-game environments over the years, though a common thread among people who’d worked on the project was that everything had, at some point in the 2010s, been absorbed into the grander project that was Grand Theft Auto V. So, although you’ll never play Agent, you’ve probably already played a fair few missions and used some items in Grand Theft Auto that were once intended for it.
(Image credit: Rockstar North)
«We have always enjoyed making action games, and with Agent we are making what we believe will be the ultimate action game,» said Sam Houser when the game was announced.
«Agent is a game we have wanted to make for a long time. The team in Edinburgh is doing an amazing job combining intense action, atmosphere and story in a great period setting to create something that feels quite unique. We cannot wait for people to experience this game.»
Alas, not to be. Agent was real, and it was being developed by one of the best studio collectives around. The fact it didn’t work out is a reminder that not only is developing these projects an incredibly difficult task but, sometimes, they don’t so much die as just end up subsumed into other things.
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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years’ experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice.
He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as «[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike.»
Agent is an ambitious Rockstar Games game originally made for PlayStation 2 and Xbox
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The site Polygon published a large material about the fate of Agent , officially announced at E3 2009 as exclusive to PlayStation 3 console .
It turned out from the article that the development of the secret project Rockstar Games began back in 2002, and they were going to release the game on PlayStation 2 and Xbox . But the game never came out, and it is not known if it will ever come out.
Agent’s history began in the early 2000s when Rockstar acquired Angel Studios , today known as Rockstar San Diego . According to former employees of this team, Rockstar’s upper management, represented by Sam and Dan Houser themselves, wanted to see what the new team was capable of, which is why Angel Studios was immediately assigned to work on their first big project in a new family — Agent. nine0003
Agent was originally conceptualized as an open world spy game inspired by the James Bond films and the British crime television series The Professionals (« The Professionals «). A wide variety of gadgets were available to players, such as a suitcase that turns into a vehicle, and a drone camera with which you can take photos.
Difficulties with the development began at the very beginning, at the stage of creating a prototype demo. Under the influence of the new bosses, big changes took place in the studio. All the work that Angel Studios had been doing before Agent was thrown out, and the entire team’s forces were fully focused on the new game, while the results were expected in the shortest possible time. nine0003
Despite the tense atmosphere within the team, the first prototype was very impressive. The demo was extremely cinematic and included scenes from a helicopter chase, blowing up buildings and landing on the roof of the White House. There was only one completed mission in the prototype, but even then everything felt quite polished. Later, this build was demonstrated to the Hauser brothers, who were satisfied and gave the green light to the development.
The original plan was to create at least three different levels, but the team managed to work on only two — a spacious hub in Washington in the 70s and a more linear level in Cairo.
In order to make the gaming locations as authentic as possible, the employees visited both cities, from where they brought a lot of photos. nine0003
The location in Washington DC was supposed to be the central location of the action, while other cities were planned as separate linear missions that the player completed during the story campaign. And it was Washington, of all locations, that was the closest to completion.
Since Angel Studios had never worked on a project of this magnitude before, the developers had to constantly upgrade their game engine. The team has been actively creating locations, while many game mechanics, such as the melee system, have so far remained only at the level of concepts. At the same time, instructions were constantly coming from the New York headquarters demanding that work on the plot and story be emphasized, which also added stress to the working environment. nine0003
The plot itself was constantly changing and rewriting, because of which some specialists simply had nothing to work with.
The Housers were constantly making edits to the script that the studio simply couldn’t keep up with. Many professionals worked 16-hour days every day, seven days a week, but even with such a schedule, they fell out of the plans set by Rockstar. The plot didn’t work out, the gameplay didn’t work out, and in an instant, development progress just stopped.
At some point Agent producer Louis Gigliotti leaves the studio and other people take over his position. Under their leadership, the development focus shifts towards working on the engine and the technological side of the project. A year later, Rockstar San Diego has a very solid toolkit suitable for creating large-scale games, but the studio still poorly understands the vision of the Housers, and is unable to put it into practice. nine0003
Against this background, Rockstar makes a lightning-fast decision to shelve the creation of Agent — in just one day, all the forces of Rockstar San Diego were transferred to a new project in the western genre, the technical foundation of which will be the engine created earlier.
So in 2005, the development of Red Dead Redemption began.
Later work on Agent was given to other people. At the time of its official announcement for the PlayStation 3 in 2009, Rockstar North 9 was working on the game.0026 . One source claims that Rockstar Leeds was also involved in the process.
According to other information, Rockstar North used some of the assets created by Rockstar San Diego, but developed on a different engine. According to the Polygon interlocutor, the results of the work of this team were much more impressive than the prototype from San Diego. A demo is mentioned in which the car was transformed into a submarine.
The further fate of the game is unknown, but it is reported that some of the developments of Rockstar North eventually found their way into Grand Theft Auto V .
Rockstar Games hasn’t officially announced the cancellation of Agent, and the PlayStation 3 exclusivity message still hangs on the official website.
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History of Agent — Rockstar’s canceled spy action movie The first story, based on anonymous interviews, turned out to be rather “dull”. Something like this: “We were like one family, and we drank tequila with the authorities on Fridays. But after buying the Rockstar studio, they “plowed” until late 7 days a week. Have pity on us, it’s so hard in game development…” But the interview with the head of development Luis Gigliotti and artist Joe Sanabria is much more interesting. nine0003
I did not translate the materials, but simply retell the most important thing, so that you get a general impression and “imbued” with another story. Separately, I will note the adventures of the team in Cairo — you can immediately skip to this chapter if the text seems boring.
At the end of the article there will be links to the original publications — for those who need details in the spirit of «Scandals, intrigues, investigations.»
Let’s get started
In 2009, Agent, a PS3 exclusive from Rockstar North, was announced at E3. Having warmed up the audience, «Agent» practically disappeared from the info. Apart from confirmation of development in 2010 and 2011 from Take-Two. Fans have been waiting for the announcement of an open-world spy action movie at every E3, but neither Rockstar nor Take-Two have been throwing news. Instead, the developer and publisher focused on supporting existing franchises, releasing a new GTA in 2013 and a continuation of the Red Dead series in 2018.0003
Finally, on November 19, 2018, Take-Two dropped the Agent trademark. The company did not comment on the decision in any way, and this date can be stuffed on the tombstone of a promising project.
Interestingly, Agent was originally developed by another in-house Rockstar studio, San Diego, with an eye to the PS2-Xbox generation.
As a result, the developments ended up in Red Dead Redemption, and some missions migrated to GTA 5.
In a conversation with eight former employees who asked for anonymity, the Polygon editors found out many details about the canceled game. Rockstar declined to comment on the article. nine0003
Let’s go back in time
Once upon a time there was a talented studio Angel Studios, and developed games in collaboration with Nintendo (N64 port of Resident Evil 2) and Microsoft (Midtown Madness 1, 2). Impressed by Midtown Madness, Rockstar Games entered into a long-term partnership with Angel. Which resulted in the Midnight Club and Smuggler’s Run series. In November 2002, the studio was acquired by Take-Two, making it part of Rockstar Games under the name Rockstar San Diego.
Thanks to San Diego, the Rock Stars launched the successful Red Dead series with Red Dead Revolver being the first game. It was originally developed at Angel Studios for Capcom. And their engine — Angel Game Engine — turned into RAGE — the basis for subsequent Rockstar projects.
nineRockstar San Diego’s 0003
Agent was intended to be an open-world spy game in the vein of the ’70s British TV series The Professionals and the classic James Bond. A variety of weapons and gadgets were trusted at the disposal of the player, for example, a briefcase that transformed into a kart or a drone with a camera that was used for “photo hunting”.
With the advent of Kickstarter, no one will be surprised by a self-propelled suitcase
Rockstar commissioned a new studio to create a demo or prototype of a future game, and Luis Gigliotti led the project. The management was delighted with the demo! The prototype «clung» cinematic than other Rockstar games of the time could not boast. In the demo, there was a level in which the player was pursued by a helicopter, blowing up the surrounding buildings (I immediately recall Uncharted 2), the doors were smashed to pieces after the explosion, and in the end, hang gliders landed on the roof of the White House.
As one former employee said, “The Agent demo was a polished and complete level with a story mission.
This is much more than you expect from a prototype…”
The demo impressed the Houser brothers (co-founders of Rockstar) and the project was greenlit.
At least three locations were originally planned. But in the end, the scale was reduced to two: Washington, where the player is thrown into an open world, and a more linear level in Cairo. To make it look authentic, the team visited both cities, taking lots of pictures.
True, the police detained the developers for filming both in Washington and in Cairo. In the US capital, the situation was quickly resolved, and Cairo became an ordeal. nine0003
Adventures in Cairo
Here begins another story based on interviews with project leader Luis Gigliotti and artist Joe Sanabria .
Sanabria (left) is known for his work on Fallout: New Vegas, and Gigliotti as the developer of The Neverhood.
In the early 2000s, while working on the spy game Agent, the Rockstar San Diego development team traveled to Cairo, Egypt.
The goal is a study tour and photographing the area to create a virtual city. Two weeks later, they were falsely accused and threatened with jail time. nine0003
In the end, Gigliotti had to do something beyond the typical duties of a manager: contact the US embassy in Cairo. He needed help. A small group of artists — his colleagues — were kept under house arrest in Cairo. In addition, the Egyptian authorities were going to falsely accuse Americans of filming pornography — a serious crime in the country.
An action-packed adventure begins at the Rockstar San Diego office in California. nine0003
While exploring the Egyptian capital ‘remotely’, the team ran into a major problem: they couldn’t find usable images of Cairo. Even satellite images of the city were not public information. As a result, they decided to go the other way: if the images are not on the Internet, then they themselves will go to Cairo and film the city. “At that time we used a different modeling technique: we filmed the building with a digital camera, using this photo as a texture,” explains Gigliotti.
In addition, a trip to Cairo could save the developers time. As Sanabria says: “Of course, a trip to Cairo costs a lot of money, but the time saved on development will justify this cost.”
Joe planned the trip: he studied the places to be photographed, he thought over what equipment he would need there. He was joined by art director Charles Morrow along with artists Darrell Gallagher and artists William Kidwell . The plan was that they would fly to Cairo for two weeks, exploring and photographing the city, and then return home and create a virtual replica. For convenient transportation, drivers will be hired, who will also become translators and share information about the city. And what could go wrong? nine0003
“Well, it turns out there are reasons why you can’t get satellite images of Cairo,” Gigliotti laughs.
Sanabria says he was aware of the legal problems of filming in and around Cairo. There were many stories of photographers being arrested and equipment confiscated.
The lucky ones were justified by the fact that they unknowingly filmed government buildings or officials. Still, the team decided to take the risk…
“I was warned about the pitfalls of filming in Cairo,” says Joe. “But I decided that we would just not shoot government buildings, and everything would go like clockwork…”
On the banks of the Nile
Once in the capital, about half an hour from the pyramids of Giza, the team checked into the InterContinental Hotel on the banks of the Nile River, which flows through the city. The group was small, and they rented a couple of vans to split into two groups if necessary. Thus, hoping to cover a large area. Together with the drivers, the developers traveled around Cairo, getting to know the various districts, streets, buildings and architecture, taking more than 12,000 shots along the way. At dinner, we looked through the footage, figuring out where to advance in the morning. nine0003
“We started early in the morning,” recalls Sanabria.
We divided the team into walking groups of two people. Everyone has a camera: one shoots the left side of the street, and the other the right.
Environment filming technique for modeling from Joe’s archives. Cairo, Egypt
«On the one hand, it was great to fly to Egypt to explore one of the oldest cities in the world at Rockstar’s expense,» Joe continues. “Even visited the tomb and photographed the ancient hieroglyphs!” Tourists pay thousands of dollars for such an experience. And it’s part of our job!» The artist talks about smoking hookah with guides and riding camels through the desert at night. nine0003 Shot of Joe on a night camel ride. The digital camera is not suitable for night shooting, so the photo is blurry.
«On the other hand, here we personally encountered what we were warned about,» laments Sanabria. In Egypt, photography of some buildings, as well as people and vehicles, is still prohibited. According to the law: «filming of military installations or near them is strictly prohibited.
» It is also not allowed to «take pictures of people without their consent.» There were cases when journalists and tourists were imprisoned for filming in Egypt. According to Joe, they were stopped several times and interrogated by law enforcement officers. And they met at every major intersection. nine0003
The law is the law
“Once we were filming near the main street and suddenly the police showed up. They began to shout, but I could not understand what they were saying, says Joe. — The interpreter said that the officers demanded the tape and ordered them to leave immediately. Even then we switched to digital cameras, so I didn’t know what to answer. He showed them the camera, saying: “This is a figure, there are no films!” Then defiantly deleted the files.
This is what an Egyptian guard of order looks like
Another member of the team had a more serious «skirmish» with the police. “The second group also photographed the city,” recall Sanabria and Gigliotti. — They were noticed by a policeman and stopped to be questioned through a guide-interpreter.
When our developer made a comment, the officer took out a gun, apparently considering that he was being rude. nine0003
It only got worse. “The cops took away the guide’s ID, telling him, ‘Now we’ll know who to look for if something happens in the city…’” continues Joe.
New acquaintances
The developers stayed in Cairo for almost two weeks, spending 12 to 16 hours a day with guides. New friends even helped them shoot in secret to avoid the suspicions of the police. “We asked the guide to get ahead of us, and give a signal if a patrol notices,” Sanabria shares his tricks. It was after talking with the guides that the developers finally realized where they really got to …
“Egyptian friends told me about the methods of the local police,” continues Joe. “Officers often catch someone in the middle of the night and interrogate them. They are not interested in the person himself — they need information. Mostly taxi drivers are interrogated, because they can remember conversations in the back seat.
And this is a common practice for the local police…”
A few days later, this is exactly what happened. “Officers grabbed our driver in the middle of the night to ask about us,” Joe recalls. “Shortly after the interrogation, we were forbidden to leave our hotel rooms.” nine0003
It should be noted that the team from Rockstar San Diego went on the trip almost ten years before the 2011-2013 Egyptian Revolution. It began with a two-week protest, during which millions of people took to the marches. Among other things, the people opposed the increased brutality of the police and the then President Hosni Mubarak. Speaking of his time in Cairo, Joe compares the city to Cuba. I’m attaching the Wikipedia article if you’d like more details.
Fly to another country and hang out in a hotel room
“I remember thinking, ‘Here you are…’,” says Gigliotti, who was in California at the time, with annoyance. He didn’t know what to do, so he called the US embassy in Cairo. And there they were stunned to hear what the team was doing.
“The embassy official asked: “So they take pictures of the surroundings?”. I confirmed, and he replied: “Well, you guys got it…”»
As Sanabria said, stuck in a hotel, they finally figured out how to approach filming. This required the escort of armed guards and relevant documents. Now the developers have been banned from leaving InterContinental, where they will stay for the remaining few days of the journey. nine0003
Photographing government buildings is prohibited by law, but walking around Cairo and taking pictures of its sights is allowed. Tourism is an integral part of the Egyptian economy, and people don’t go to jail for the pyramids. But tourist centers are only a small part of the city, even though these open spaces are enough for foreigners.
They fly to Egypt for this
Developers from Rockstar San Diego have gone far beyond the tourist areas. They naively took pictures of everything around. Terrorist attacks on foreigners have been a problem in Egypt for decades.
Therefore, it is logical that the Americans walking around the inconspicuous areas of Cairo did not cause surprise, but questions. nine0003
Interrogation
Darrell Gallagher had to fly home a couple of days before the rest of the team. While waiting for his flight at the airport terminal, he was grabbed by security and taken to an interrogation room. “They delayed the plane, telling him: “We were told that you and your friends are filming pornography here,” Joe recalls Darrell’s retelling. “We need all the photos and your laptop.”
Of course, this is not why the team visited Cairo (possession and distribution of pornography is illegal in Egypt). Obviously the accusation was false. “About 12,000 photographs had been taken by then,” says Sanabria. “Even because of one photo, let’s say something illegal accidentally got into the frame, we were threatened with a prison!” nine0003
Colleagues across the ocean had no idea how to get friends out of trouble. Gigliotti called the US embassy in Cairo, where they told the harsh truth.
The embassy cannot help them. If the tourists broke the law, even if unconsciously, they will be held accountable to the fullest extent…
Finally, Gigliotti was connected to the head of the embassy’s security service. He asked the programmer: ““First, explain what is happening and why they are here,” Louis retells the conversation. “Nothing illegal… We just make games. These shots are needed to create textures for a future project! The civil servant replied: “I’m sorry, but if your guys are arrested, it’s not easy for them to get out. The Egyptian authorities will confiscate the photographs, they may even fabricate pornography charges. One dirty picture in a laptop is enough to face the death penalty.” At that moment, I was completely desperate…”
Dirty pictures
As Sanabria recalls, the last days were the most stressful. So that the trip would not be in vain, he burned the photos on a DVD, removing everything doubtful, and sent it via FedEx to a California studio.
There were only photographs of the pyramids, museums and other tourist attractions. Then the team had to get to the airport, go through customs, and return home by plane.
“I barely slept the last few days before the flight,” recalls Joe. “I have never experienced such stress…”
Before departure, another problem arose — the contents of Morrow’s laptop. More specifically, the information on his father’s laptop that Charles had borrowed for the trip. “His father is a gynecologist,” explains Sanabria, “so the laptop contained pictures of the female reproductive organs.”
“These photos are for research,” Joe laughs. “Charles said, ‘You can’t delete the material, this is my father’s job!’”
Departure
Early in the morning, after only a couple of hours of sleep, the team went to the airport. The plan was that as soon as the plane took off, Sanabria would call Gigliotti to please his colleagues. And Louis will inform the embassy. nine0003
The team left the hotel, got to the airport and finally ended up in the terminal.
According to Joe, they put on «stone» faces and tried to behave calmly. “The most stressful thing was the wait in the terminal, because that’s when Darrell was grabbed,” Sanabria shares.
To everyone’s relief, they boarded the plane, took their seats, and then took off! The team took a breath. And Sanabria called Gigliotti. “I told him, ‘Eagle in the sky,’” Joe ends the interview.
“I will never forget that phone call,” Gigliotti shares his memories. — There were about 45 people in the office — everyone was on edge — and then the phone rings. I pick up the phone, and I hear one of my artists: “We did it! Now we are standing on the airstrip, and soon we will leave Egypt!“”
After a transplant in England, where the team celebrated the «escape» with alcohol, they finally returned to California. It is not known why the Egyptian authorities did not press charges. Gigliotti says the studio was planning a similar trip to St. Petersburg. But everything was canceled after the incident.
“Let’s not go to Russia, so as not to step on the same rake!” Luis recalls his words.
This interview ends and let’s get back to the history of the project, based on the anonymous stories of former employees. nine0003
Game concept
There are problems with the police in Washington (after all, the capital of the United States), but nothing compared to the «Cairo adventure».
After each trip, employees returned with photographs, on the basis of which they created a virtual copy of the city. Combining their photographs and archival photographs from the 70s, the team modeled a vast location that was impressive in scale for that time. As a result, the capital of America became the only city that managed to recreate. nine0003 Washington at the height of the Cold War
“The main architecture was completely modeled,” says the artist. “It all worked out pretty well. It turned out to be Washington of the 70s — a sort of “time capsule”.
As planned, the capital of America served as a «hub» for the player, and the rest of the world’s cities were planned as linear missions, where we will go throughout the campaign.
Building an ambitious open-world game has become a challenge for Rockstar San Diego. The studio had done smaller sandbox projects before, like the racing games Midtown Madness and Midnight Club, but the world of Agent had to be interacted with. nine0003
“Game mechanics, like vehicles, didn’t exist yet,” says one of the designers. “Even hand-to-hand combat was only in the development stage. We were working on the game engine, and in New York they were already interested in when the story would be finished … ”In addition, the studio worked on Red Dead Revolver.
Bad Rock
In the mid-2000s, three people associated with Rockstar San Diego died shortly thereafter: Mike Haynes while at the company, and Carlos Hernandez and Bill Purvis after leaving the studio. nine0003
Haynes was hit by a bus on his motorcycle on his way to work. Rockstar dedicated Table Tennis, the 2006 game, to his memory.
After a year working on Agent, Luis Gigliotti left Rockstar to form a new studio with THQ, Concrete Games .
He was joined by 11 more colleagues who also worked on Agent. Rumor has it that the Gigliotti team was influenced by the working conditions at Rockstar (we are talking about «crunches»). Hernandez died unexpectedly at the Concrete Games office.
The engine is a priority
To compensate for the departure of staff in Concrete, part of the team switched from Red Dead Revolver (released May 4, 2004) to work on Agent.
For the next year, the team focused on the game engine, improving the tools needed to create an action game in the open world. The updated Rockstar San Diego team worked on The Agent for about a year.
The time spent developing the technology was taken away from the game itself. The release of the promising Rockstar San Diego project was becoming less and less realistic. But invented innovations have not gone away. They were used in Red Dead Redemption. nine0003
“We made the decision to shelve Agent and invest the technology we developed into a sequel to the Red Dead series,” says one former employee.
— The engine we created can be used in any project. Perhaps the Red Dead Redemption theme is even more suitable for this.
According to former developers, the transition from one game to another happened «on the fly». But the news shocked many. They believed that Agent would be the next big Rockstar game. In the future, all the developments were also used in future parts of GTA. nine0003
Western development began in 2005, and the release came in 2010. But even here it was not without difficulties. Difficult working conditions have become the norm in Rockstar San Diego projects.
Scandals, intrigues, investigations
In 2006, Rockstar was sued by a multi-million dollar lawsuit by its employees. Garrett Flynn and Terry-Kim Chakri, on behalf of more than 100 current and former Rockstar San Diego employees, accused the company of working unpaid overtime. It was about all projects: from the collaboration, being Angel Studios, and after the acquisition. nine0003
Litigation continued for more than two years until Rockstar agreed to pay the amount sought in November 2008, although it denied all labor violations.
According to the released statement, «the company considered the litigation to be lengthy and costly for all parties, and therefore agreed to pay the amount requested.»
In the hands of another studio
Jack Tretton announced at E3 2009 that Rockstar North was working on Agent. However, the company often distributes the development of its projects to several internal studios, and it is not known for certain to what extent Agent became the brainchild of Sever. nine0003 As you can see, the list of Rockstar chapters is quite impressive
An anonymous source says that Rockstar Leeds was also working on a spy thriller, taking over when Rockstar North switched to GTA 5. from San Diego to a new engine, and supplemented with her own ideas. “In their demo, the car turned into a submarine!” (which is in the spirit of the classic Bond), — says anonymous.
More former developers say that Rockstar North’s developments — specific locations and missions — ended up in GTA 5.
