The fact that Agent was first penned as a PlayStation 3 exclusive should probably tell you enough. But that hasn’t stopped some hoard-core fans believing that the game still had a fighting chance of publication. But now, over 12 years after its 2009 E3 debut, Agent looks to have finally relegated to the dusty shelf for games that never were. Agent has now been removed from the Rockstar Games’ website.
Rockstar North was the initial group that led the development of Agent, the same team behind GTA IV and V. Back then, the new IP sounded promising. The premise focused on a Cold-War inspired tale of espionage set in the 1970s. But in the end, all we got was an iconic black and white logo.
Many fans have of course held a flame in hope of eventual release. Particularly in the wake of repeated renewal of the games trade mark by parent company Take-Two Interactive. This false gesture of hope happened twice unit now, first in 2013 and then a second time in 2017. But this was not repeated in 2018 and now the removal of Agent from the website seems the final nail in the coffin.
Twitter Super Sleuths Arise
The game’s removal was noted earlier today by Twitter user @Ulvi, who saw that Agent had vanished from Rockstar’s website. Curiously, snapshots via the Wayback Machine show the page for Agent on the site continued until September this year. But the precise date, and indeed reason for the removal remain a mystery, Rockstar having yet to confirm suspicions.
Perhaps this isn’t much of a surprise given the time that has now passed since our glimpse of Agent. Of course, it’s not the first PlayStation exclusive from a third party to vanish into vaporware either. During the PlayStation 4’s 2013 reveal event, Sony showcased Capcom’s Deep Down, a cooperative dungeon crawler from the mind of Street Fighter’s Yoshinori Ono. But in 2019, Ono informed the press that Capcom had now placed the project on indefinite hold.
But such is the way with ideas. PlayStation’s former boss, Shawn Layden too remains in the dark about what happened to Deep Down. And it’s likely that’s exactly how Rockstar will leave us on Agent’s apparent demise. In the end why companies choose to create hype for such games at so early a point in development remains the real mystery. Abstract logos and cinematic trailers, whilst tantalising are really nothing more than hot air. If you really want to board the hype train, we’d advising waiting until it makes a firm and decisive stop at “Game Play Reveal” before buying your ticket.
Source; Screen Rant
“Video games are great. I should know, I’ve played some.”
Olly S, July 2020