Overview
- Houser says Rockstar tried roughly five versions of Agent, including 1970s Cold War and modern settings, but none fit the studio’s open-world model.
- He argues spy stories require relentless, against-the-clock pacing that conflicts with the player freedom central to Rockstar’s sandboxes.
- A Grand Theft Auto V single-player DLC casting Trevor as a secret agent was about half finished before being scrapped, which he suggests helped clear the path for Red Dead Redemption 2.
- Agent was announced as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in 2009 and never released, with its trademark ultimately abandoned in 2018.
- After leaving Rockstar in 2020, Houser now leads Absurd Ventures and predicts Grand Theft Auto 6 will sell very well due to heavy anticipation.