Bully 2 Scrapped Build Remains at Rockstar, Had RDR2-Style Honor System

After reports of developer/publisher Rockstar Games working on a follow-up sequel for 2006 action-adventure game Bully was surfaced earlier, a French publication claimed that they are actually developing a remaster of the original.

A number of former developers at Rockstar New England recently revealed a troubled history of development for heavily-anticipated sequel to Bully and suggests that a build may internally exists as reference material at Rockstar Games.

There is a huge cult-following for PlayStation 2-era classic Bully that focuses on troubled youth James "Jimmy" Hopkins of New England, who gets enrolled at Bullworth Academy and tries to make his way to top and puts a stop to bullying.

According to a new report on Game Informer, former Rockstar developers have shared details of working on Bully 2. In late 2000s, five ex-employees of Rockstar New England were involved in Bully sequel and it never actually came out.

New England team was assigned to be a successor to Rockstar Vancouver and they were ready to prove themselves as a newly acquired studio but it was really hard to outdo Rockstar North, which was making the Grand Theft Auto series.

Formerly known as Mad Doc Software, New England wanted to be golden child of Rockstar but with Rockstar North producing all the golden eggs back then, it was near impossible for anyone to just take over their position at any capacity.

Mad Doc previously worked on Bully: Scholarship Edition, a remaster of 2006 original that adds new characters, missions and more, before they were acquired by Rockstar in April 2008 after a successful partnership and they all felt excited.

They all enjoyed a little bit of clout and loved working on anything that came their way but this blissful period didn't last for that long after forming Rockstar New England when vice president of development, Jeronimo Barrera visited them.

One of the first flags they noticed was when Jeronimo was asked about their working hours and weekends, to which he cleverly responded saying they don't work every weekend, just like how he was not working that Saturday, for example.

After that meeting, New England dev team was working hard on PC version of Bully: Scholarship Edition. While starting to work on a sequel to Bully, they also assisted with story expansions of Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption.

Bully 2 was originally regarded in same heights of GTA and Red Dead series, with a lot of focus on characters and a deep system. New England studio was pushing it further to be on the level of Grand Theft Auto franchise, says a developer.

About 50-70 people were working on Bully sequel with a goal to make it bigger and deeper than 2006 original game. They came across some more red flags but employees were more excited to become part of a massive project for Rockstar.

Its open-world was planned to be in scope of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City or at least three times bigger than original school map but not larger than GTA IV and Rockstar New England wanted to make surrounding areas much more accessible.

They had plans to make it so that player could enter every building, whether by normal means or a forced entry. Since these characters were mostly kids and they were not going to be driving a car to anywhere, so it was a very believable idea.

Making every building enterable was a lot of work and thus, they opted to scale back a little bit to have meaningful things in-game. Given their exceptional skills in artificial intelligence, they wanted to make player actions more meaningful.

For instance, if you pulled a prank on your neighbor, they would remember it next time when they see you. Player actions would have much more impact beyond a 20-foot radius and five-second memories of any non-playable characters.

Rockstar never released Bully 2 but some of these ideas eventually made it to other games like 2018's critically-acclaimed Red Dead Redemption II as protagonist Arthur Morgan would have a change of behavior depending on his honor level.

If he has high honor, Morgan is more compassionate to others but if his honor is low, he will be greedy and indifferent. Moreover, people won't just forget if he robs a store and will be denied service by store clerk as he walks in minutes later.

Regardless of how you interact with other characters, they would remember it in some manner. Bully 2 had this concept of building relationships with NPCs; someone could be your best friend or hate you, which could lead to different options.

Without going to an extent, their general concept for protagonist character was "you're good Jimmy" or "you're bad Jimmy", among a variety of other ideas on early stages of how building relationships with other characters may work out.

Rockstar New Englandf's innovation has introduced new glass fragmentation system that made it to future games like Max Payne 3. They didn't just stop at that and moved forward with more techs like grass growing for Bully sequel back then.

Even though it all sounds silly, dev team was excited because of the technology they developed for it and how detail they were. They also had a focus on climbing, as it would let Jimmy explore in-game world further and cause a lot more chaos.

At one point in time, Bully 2 was playable at Rockstar New England where he could run around and interact with NPCs. There was a mission with a beekeeper, a Kamp Krusty-style mission and one with him in underwear, having a crotch bulge.

For sequel to Bully, New England team used a lot of references from 80s-kids-on-bikes movies like Goonies and Porky's. According to former Rockstar game analyst Marc Anthony Rodriguez, it was fully rendered, playable for about 6-8 hours.

Even though Bully 2 was a few years away from release, Rockstar begins pulling out people for other in-development projects that required a little assistance, like Max Payne 3 and once they pulled someone off, they never actually returned.

Former staff members also recalled history of crunch, working for 12 to 16 hour days and even on weekend. Some called "endless" because of how ridiculous it was since people's life outside of work was ignored, without taking into account.

This vicious cycle of crunch has changed their overall studio culture and many of them became sycophantic. Even if there was no work on weekend, you need to be there because some studio head might be walking around, which is ridiculous.

Despite those tireless hardworking hours, the fate of Bully 2 still remains uncertain as Rockstar may not have any idea what to do about it. Throughout the years, there were many rumors for a sequel for Bully but nothing came out eventually.

Back in 2009, composer Shawn Lee suggested possibility of working on soundtracks for Bully 2 but nothing happened. Earlier in 2011, Dan Houser said that Rockstar may begin working on its sequel after Max Payne 3, which came out in 2012.

Recently in 2017, Bully 2 Info account on Twitter has posted a bunch of alleged concept art and in-game screenshots that were proven legit. A former Rockstar New England employee reveals that Rockstar decided to shelve the project in 2009.

Another report claimed that Rockstar New England was working on Bully 2 for over a year or so before they scrapped it. All of these reportedly happened between 2010-2013 but a former dev recalls it actually taking place between 2008-2010.

Rockstar New England still has a build of Bully 2 that they frequently use for reference purposes on other projects. Although there is no hope for its release, developers still believe its concepts were amazing, very interesting and worth exploring.