Rockstar San Diego

Agent (RockStar) [XBOX PS2 – Cancelled]

Agent is a cancelled action / sandbox style game that was in development in 2003 by Rockstar San Diego / Angel Studios, for the Playstation 2 and Xbox. There are not many info available on the project, as it was never officially announced, but we can assume that it was going to be somehow similar to the GTA series. In the end the game was never finished for unknown reasons, but it’s possible that Rockstar San Diego had to shift resources to finish Red Dead Revolver. Only few screens  and a video from an ealry prototype / tech demo are saved in the gallery below, to preserve its existence.

A new project also called Agent is now in development at Rockstar North for the Playstation 3, but we are not sure if the 2 games are somehow related. As we can read in Wikipedia, Agent by Rockstar Nord will be set in the world of the late 1970s and it will “take players on a paranoid journey into the world of counter-intelligence, espionage, and political assassinations”.

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Red Dead Redemption [X360 PS3 – Beta / Tech Demo]

Red Dead Redemption is a Western open world action adventure, developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in May 2010. A trailer of the project was sent to a select number of people at a Sony conference in 2005, promoting the release of the PlayStation 3 system. The trailer was a tech demo of RAGE set in a western setting referred to as Old West Project and a direct sequel to Red Dead Revolver. [Info from Wikipedia]

In this tech demo video we can see like an early version of Armadillo, and the character it shows looks nothing at all like the John Marston we have now, most notable difference is the character in that video has blonde hair.

The comments in the Youtube page point out some more differences:

Looks like the town is an earlier rendition of Armadillo, with buildings similar to the ones in the MacFarlane Ranch. And the duster is an early rendition of the duster outfit that can be unlocked in RDR.

I’d say you are right, it sure does share great similarity to Armadillo building wise. Interesting to see the layout differences of some of the buildings. If you look closely at around 0:11 also, you can see what appears to be animals (possibly horses?) moving around the fenced building to the top-left. I’m guessing that was the original idea of the fenced horse area in Armadillo next to the Salon in the final game.
I always find it amazing, watching this video.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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Red Dead Revolver [Beta – PS2, XBOX]

Red Dead Revolver is a western third-person shooter published by Rockstar Games and developed by Angel Studios, a team that is now known as Rockstar San Diego. The game was released in May 2004, for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, but its development begun 3 years before (2001 / 2002) and the project was originally meant to be published by Capcom.

In 2002, Angel Studios were acquired by Take Two Interactive and Rockstar Games purchased the rights of the title and expanded on it. The original version of Red Dead Revolver had a more arcadish and fast gameplay, while the final one had a more “open world realistic” approach. The “Angel Studios Version” was played more like an “on rails” shooter (but with free movements), instead the “Rockastar San Diego Version” is more like an action adventure.

Chek the trailers below for a comparison. If you played the game and can help us to notice more differences, it would be appreciated!

Thanks to BemaniAK for the contribution!

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Beta Videos:

Here’s the final version of the game for comparison: