A former Rockstar boss finally said it out loud: a story DLC for GTA V was indeed in the works, but it was scrapped – and that decision proved pivotal for Red Dead Redemption 2. Dan Houser recalls the “Trevor-as-secret-agent” pitch and admits, “if it had come out, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make Red Dead Redemption 2.”

It’s long been an open secret that a character-led expansion was planned for GTA V. Between comments from Steven Ogg (Trevor’s voice) and findings by GTA Online dataminers, Rockstar had mapped out a DLC turning Trevor into a kind of James Bond – an undercover operative. Yet the add-on was never formally announced and ultimately shelved without a clear public rationale. Why did development stall, and why did the team walk away? Dan Houser – Rockstar cofounder and now head of Absurd Ventures – has spoken for the first time, saying the extra content was dropped so the studio could concentrate on shipping Red Dead Redemption 2.

On Lex Fridman’s podcast (available on YouTube), Houser was candid about canned Rockstar efforts – from the elusive Agent to GTA V’s Trevor expansion. And in the latter case, there’s little to obfuscate: as he put it, “the internet knows we made a DLC… a single-player DLC for GTA V that was never released.”

“It was one where you played as Trevor, but he was a secret agent. It was adorable. It never really took off and was never finished. It was half-finished when it was abandoned.” Rockstar arguably had the cash flow and bandwidth to keep iterating, but another priority took the top slot. “I think if it had been released, we probably wouldn’t have been able to make Red Dead Redemption 2. So you always have to make compromises.” Cancelling the Trevor DLC freed the team to pour everything into the game that would go on to become a modern landmark.

Houser also name-checked another Grand Theft Auto idea he was sorry to lose: GTA Zombies. “I liked the idea; it was a GTA game with zombies,” he said. “It would’ve been funny. I think it would’ve been quite entertaining.”

Red Dead Redemption 2’s Takeoff Was Anything But Easy

Choosing to drop the GTA V expansion to focus on Red Dead Redemption 2 didn’t make the western’s production smooth. Studio staff endured intense crunch, with reports of up to 100-hour weeks at times.

Houser told Lex Fridman the game also wrestled with heavy creative and financial pressures. There were moments when even getting Arthur Morgan’s story to market felt uncertain.

Source: 3djuegos