Grand Theft Auto 5 was first released in 2013 (on PC in 2015), and from the perspective of 2024 we can see that it was a live game in disguise. The single-player side of the game, which for the first time featured three protagonists that players could switch between on the fly, acted as a Trojan horse for Rockstar's second swing at GTA Online, the multiplayer mode that would eventually dominate the studio's time and attention. and generate unfathomable levels of cash.
This means that some projects have been abandoned. GTA 5 originally had post-launch plans more in line with those of GTA 4, which received two excellent single-player expansions: The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. Rockstar planned three single-player expansions for GTA 5, each themed around one of the game's protagonists, but after the launch itself it refocused on creating expansions for GTA Online (the studio mentioned for the first released single-player DLC in 2013, but it would take until 2017 for its cancellation to be confirmed).
Thanks to dataminers, we know that the first expansion was called Agent Trevor, while the last two had the working titles of “Zombie Apocalypse” and “Alien Invasion.” Trevor's voice actor, Steve Ogg, recently appeared in a GTA livestream alongside Ned Luke (who played Michael) and Shawn Fonteno (Franklin) to talk about their time working on the game (first spotted by Loadout), and in doing so revealed that Rockstar had come some distance before canceling the expansion.
“We had this really cool shit where, and I forget if it was DLC, Trevor would be undercover,” Ogg says. “He works for the federal government. And we did some of this stuff with James Bond Trevor, for example: he's always a little screwed up, but he does his best to pretend to be like that. [an agent]. We shot a few things and then it disappeared and [Rockstar] They never did it and they never followed through on it.”
The innate comedy of Trevor, essentially a deeply unpleasant sociopath, playing a federal agent is evident. And the Agent Trevor DLC was teased by Rockstar in-game with a jetpack, one of Bond's most infamous gadgets, suggesting that it would have leaned heavily on gadgets and silly set pieces, similarly to Gay Tony wrapped a big bow. around the fabulous excess possible in GTA 4.
Ned Luke says a lot of these ideas ended up in DLC for GTA Online, which Ogg agrees with, before thinking about what would have been a fun aspect for GTA 5, not just his character.
“[Agent Trevor] that would have been cool,” Ogg said. “He was hired [by the Feds], it would have been fun, to follow another journey. You know, like Franklin was born again or was Mormon or something [laughs] or a Hutterite and will make rabbit slippers on the colony [laughs]”.
As if that didn't make you feel bad enough for what we never got, the problem is that Agent Trevor was supposed to climax with his own Moonraker moment, which would see Trevor flying into space. Ned Luke mentions GTA Online and this is where Agent Trevor's best ideas ended up, mostly during the Doomsday heist and some during the Diamond Casino heist.
To return briefly to GTA 4's episodic DLC model, the problem wasn't the quality (both were superb), but the fact that Take Two and Rockstar felt they had underperformed commercially (or like Ben Feder, so CEO of Take Two). I put it in 2009, “were unable to capitalize on GTA 4's initial marketing campaign and initial launch fervor”). GTA Online, on the other hand, makes around half a billion dollars a year despite being a hot mess.
All eyes are on GTA 6 now, but even though that game will be sold as a single-player, it seems unlikely that Rockstar will ever return to single-player DLC (it didn't even go there with Red Dead Redemption 2, which called for his own Undead Nightmare). Agent Trevor is a glimpse into the road not taken, and while much of it ended up being repurposed elsewhere, it's a shame we'll never get to see everyone's favorite psychopath in a tuxedo, ordering a vodka martini before burn everything.