Bully has still to date remained many’s favourite classic action adventure experience. Recently, a sequel to the fan-favourite Teen-rated GTA started popping up, making fans wonder if the wait is finally about to be over. But unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely anymore.
A new report from VGC says that a sequel was infact under development for about 18 months, but ultimately “fizzled out” at the end.
Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser and a few developers wrote a script for the game as early as 2008. It contained the first few scenes and an outline of the rest of the story, according to some sources.
The story starred Jimmy, hero of the first game, and featured many returning characters. It began at Jimmy’s step-dad’s house in the summer at the end of a school year, the source said, which corroborates anonymous claims reported by Bully YouTuber SWEGTA.
A few years later, after the launch of Red Dead Redemption in 2010, a team at Rockstar New England spent 18 months building out the concept, according to another source.
The second source said they even developed a “very small slice” of the game, complete with simplistic open-world gameplay. It was built using the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE), the same engine used for Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5, Max Payne 3, and both Red Dead Redemption games.
Despite that progress, Bully 2 never built momentum and “fizzled out”, the source said. The team were moved onto other projects.
“It existed, it was playable, it was just a shame it never got off the ground,” they said.
Many developers that worked at the studio during the time period also list an “unannounced game” on their CVs. According to VGC, Rockstar has declined to comment on this.
It’s a shame the sequel to one of the most popular fan-favourite games could never see the light of the day, even after 13 whole years since the original. However rumour has it that the project was re-entering production under a new development team in 2014/15. But keep in mind that no sources have confirmed this yet, so take it with yet another pinch of salt.
How do you feel about this seemingly cancelled project? And what would you want to see in a possible Bully sequel, if it ever comes to existence? Throw in all your thoughts in the comment section.
