A character model buried in Grand Theft Auto 5‘s leaked source code may be the GTA 5 Agent protagonist, according to a GTAForums user who cross-referenced folder names, file metadata, and artist portfolios to build a detailed case for the model’s identity. The evidence is circumstantial, but it covers enough ground to take seriously.
Rockstar reporter BenTech spotted the investigation on X, though the story begins in May 2025. A GTAForums member named Krierra had posted character models from the GTA 5 source code, which leaked in 2023, claiming they were all from Agent, Rockstar Games‘s long-cancelled spy thriller. The post attracted little attention until last week, when a user named XanaBax took a closer look.
XanaBax dismissed three of the four models. Two are GTA 5 NPCs, and a third originates in The Ballad of Gay Tony, the GTA 4 expansion. The fourth is harder to explain.
Why the GTA 5 model could be Agent’s protagonist
XanaBax’s argument rests on several pieces of circumstantial evidence. The model sits inside a folder structure where the main node carries the label “player”, and the folder itself bears the name “Jimmy”, the internal codename Rockstar used for Agent. Either detail might have an innocent explanation. Both together are harder to dismiss.
The model’s XMD filename contains the string “NorthRig”, consistent with assets developed at Rockstar North, the Edinburgh studio that led development on Agent. The file carries a date of June 2009, placing its creation between GTA 4’s release and the early stages of GTA 5, when Agent was still in active development.
The model also appears in the portfolio of a former Rockstar environment artist who worked on Agent. XanaBax further notes that the model shares its UV map with GTA 4 protagonist Niko Bellic, consistent with how Rockstar reused assets across projects during that period.
What happened to Agent
Rockstar announced Agent in 2007 as a PlayStation 3 exclusive, pitching a 1970s Cold War spy story in an open world. No trailers appeared, few details followed, and the game gradually fell silent before disappearing from Rockstar’s website entirely in 2021, with no official cancellation statement.
Former Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser addressed the cancellation in a recent interview, saying Agent went through “about five different iterations” and never came together. His explanation was direct: open world design and the demands of a tightly written spy thriller work against each other.
The GTA 5 source code leak has surfaced other details about Rockstar’s unrealised projects. Houser also revealed that a Bully sequel was abandoned due to “bandwidth issues” within the studio’s senior leadership, with the team unable to support multiple large-scale games simultaneously.
None of this confirms XanaBax’s conclusion. Character models migrate between projects, and folder names are not proof of anything. However, the combination of the codename, the file date, the Rockstar North attribution, and the portfolio appearance gives this theory more grounding than most datamining claims.