Ex-Rockstar North dev spills on Agent, abandoned zombie game, and more in fascinating new blog
UPDATE: Now offline, following contact by Rockstar itself.
UPDATE 23/11/23: Ex-Rockstar North technical director Obbe Vermeij has U-turned on plans to share more about the development of early Rockstar games he worked on, after Rockstar itself got in touch.
"Today I got an email from R* North," Vermeij wrote in a new blog post, after his earlier details about Agent and an abandoned zombie project caught the eyes of fans. "Apparently some of the OG's there are upset by my blog. I genuinely didn't think anyone would mind me talking about 20 year old games but I was wrong. Something about ruining the Rockstar mystique or something.
"Anyway, this blog isn't important enough to me to piss off my former colleagues in Edinburgh so I'm winding it down. I'll maybe just leave a few articles with anecdotes that don't affect anyone but me.
"I would love for Rockstar to open up about development of the trilogy themselves, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon.
"Maybe I'll try again in a decade or two."
We reported yesterday on details shared by the blog already - but it sounds as if few more will be forthcoming, which is a real shame. Rockstar rarely discusses its development processes and plans publicly - enough that two decades on, there was real interest in hearing more, with the benefit of time meaning nothing would spoil the company's plans for what's next - Grand Theft Auto 6, which we'll get a first glimpse of next month.
ORIGINAL STORY 22/11/23: The world has been given a tiny glimpse into the uber-secretive world of Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar North thanks to a fascinating new blog from former technical director Obbe Vermeij, who, in just a few short weeks, has shed light on the studio's cancelled spy game Agent, discussed a zombie game abandoned by the company after it was deemed to be too "depressing", and more.
Vermeij served as technical director at Rockstar North from 1995 (when the studio was still known as DMA Design) to 2009, meaning his time at the company spanned the creation of Grand Theft Auto as a series right through to Grand Theft Auto 4 and its DLC.
Since launching his blog earlier this month, Vermeij has been sharing anecdotes covering a number of Rockstar games, touching on everything from the company's streaming tech for Grand Theft Auto 3 - which struggled enough that the art team was forced to shove a building in the middle of a long stretch of Portland road to ensure players wouldn't run out of city while loading continued - to early efforts at implementing multiplayer in GTA 3.
In the latter case, Rockstar is said to have experimented with a "basic death match" that would let players drag each other out of cars and kill to earn points - a mode that "worked but [was] glitchy", eventually being abandoned as the team was "running out of time".
Perhaps the most interesting anecdotes shared so far, however, relate to the games that might have been; one of these includes Rockstar's notorious Agent, a spy game set during the Cold War in the late 70s that was formally announced as a PS3-exclusive in 2009 and then, after years of silence, simply fizzled out into obscurity, its web pages and trademarks abandoned.
According to Vermeij's account, Agent started life as a demo - featuring a "hang glider and a car turning into a submarine or something" - built by Rockstar North to encourage other studios in the company to use the GTA Engine. That demo would eventually evolve into full production, at the encouragement of Rockstar president Leslie Benzies, with half of Rockstar North working on Agent (internally known as "Jimmy", because what else would a Scottish studio call a James Bond inspired game?) while the other half developed GTA 4's DLC and GTA 5.
According to Vermeij, Agent would be a more linear experience compared to GTA, and would take place across a number of classic spy movie locations, including a French Mediterranean city, a Swiss ski resort, and Cairo, the story culminating in a "big shootout with lasers in space". Rockstar is said to have worked on Agent "for over a year" - a downhill skiing chase scene with guns was developed, for instance - but "the game wasn't progressing as well as we'd hoped."
With Grand Theft Auto 5 - a project "the whole company would have to get behind" - looming, the Agent team "tried to cut the game down in an attempt the get the bulk of it done before the inevitable call from NY would come" but it "became clear that Jimmy was going to be too much of a distraction for us and we ditched it." Vermeij recalls Agent was "handed over to another company within Rockstar but never got completed".
And so farewell Agent. But that's not the only intrguing might-have-been shared in Vermeij's blog so far. He also spend a little time reminiscing on a zombie project known as Z, which, using the code created for GTA San Andreas, would take place on a "windswept foggy Scottish island". Here, players would find themselves under constant attack from the undead, needing to find vehicles and fuel to get around. Development on the idea progressed for "several months", according to Vermeij, but, ultimately, "the idea seemed depressing and quickly ran out of steam." And so development was dropped to focus on GTA 4.
Vermeij's blog is a illuminating read, and an intriguing anecdotal dip back through the ordinarily shadowy history of one of the most successful - and most secretive - developers in the games industry. Needles to say, it's well worth perusing.