Rockstar Games: Bully 2 probably discontinued because of GTA 6 and Red Dead Redemption 2

Rockstar Games are now primarily known for their two mega franchises Red Dead Redemption and GTA. A little more than a decade ago, however, the franchise was more broadly based. Midnight Club, Manhunt, Max Payne and LA Noire as well as Bully - Die Ehrenlunde (or Canis Canem Edit in the PS2 original) were popular and sometimes controversial brands that were successful with fans and the press, but never in terms of sales and quality the dimensions of the above brands advanced.

A small comparison in numbers: Max Payne 3 has sold around three million copies; the LA Noire adventure, developed by Team Bondi, went over the counter for all platforms just over five million times. The Red Dead Redemption successor, last published in 2018, sold 32 million times, GTA 5 even more than 135 million times. So it's hardly surprising that Rockstar puts almost all of its resources into the two open world top dogs. In fact, work has apparently been done several times on a Bully successor in the meantime. The development of Bully 2 seems to have been put on hold for the third time in 2017, so that Rockstar Games employees could focus on other or rather larger projects.

The message originally came from the US website Dualshockers and goes back to two former Rockstar Games insiders with the nicks Tez2 and Yan2295. Over the past few years, these have repeatedly leaked the internals of the development studio. So reported Tez2 about recentlythat the pre-production phase for Grand Theft Auto 6 started in 2015, but was slowed down two years later in the course of the complex development of Red Dead Redemption 2 and, last but not least, Bully 2. According to the current status, the development of Bully 2 was stopped again in 2017 to free up the capacities for GTA 6 and RDR 2. on Reddit Yan2295 confirmed what Tez2 had said.

The rumor mill about a possible Bully successor is simmering

In the past few years, rumors about a possible Bully sequel have flared up again and again. A few years ago there were authentic early prototype leaks, in 2019 possible in-game screenshots popped up, but they turned out to be Fakes from an enthusiastic fan and designer turned out to be a Brazilian named Felipe Borges.

https://twitter.com/Felipeborges388/status/1168696054700752896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1168741697183977473%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgamerant.com%2Fbully-2-leak-screenshots-fake%2F

Bully originally appeared as Canis Canem Edit (Latin for dog eats dog) in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. Two years later, versions for the Xbox360, PC and Nintendo Wii followed. In 2016, ten years after the first release, the subtly improved "Anniversary Edition" was implemented for PlayStation 4 and mobile devices based on Android and IOS. In the role of 15-year-old teenager Jimmy Hopkins, we have to complete a school year at Bullworth Academy. Between the fronts of various archetypal school cliques, newcomers must earn respect and climb the high school hierarchy. The game is based on the same principles as the great role model GTA. In an open world environment we complete missions, routines and minigames and advance in the story in a non-linear structure.

In Bully - The Round of Honor, here the Anniversary Edition, various cliques on campus intrigue against each other. The nerds also know how to help each other. Image: Rockstar Games

There are also rumors about the hotly anticipated GTA 6. Insiders or market analysts have different views on the current situation. While Tez2 and Yan2295 assume a level of development that covers around 60 to 70 percent of the finished game, market analyst Jason Schreier is from the Bloomberg news agency the opinionthat GTA 6 is still in a very early stage. The fact that GTA 5 and the lucrative multiplayer component GTA Online will also be implemented for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S | X in the coming year speaks more in favor of Schreier's forecast. However, there are currently no indications of a possible next-gen implementation of Red Dead Redemption 2.