GTA 6 Will Never Make Up For Bully 2's Cancelation

Rockstar has decided to move all of its resources toward the development of Grand Theft Auto 6, and while the next entry in the franchise is highly anticipated, it has come at a cost with other anticipated sequels of its other IPs such as Bully 2 falling by the wayside. Considering Rockstar Games' releases over the years, it's easy to see how its portfolio seems to have shrunk down to only two major franchises: Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

[porkChop]

Bully 2 was cancelled in 2010. It had nothing to do with GTA V or VI.

[Tacoboto]

Articles like these exist as a dogwhistle to trigger the anti-woke crowd more than to make an actual point. Their other IP is name-dropped in a single sentence and they briefly go over LA Noire - but no, the highlight is on a never-announced never-confirmed sequel to a one-off that didn't sell more than a few million max (Wikipedia has reference to 1.5 million sales of the original on PS2).

Smuggler's Run - dead. Table Tennis - only ever a premium tech demo. Midnight Club - dead. GTA Single Player - neglected since 2013. Read Dead - can't even get a 60fps patch for current gen despite 50m sales and the online was neglected shortly after release. New IP - forget it. If this article was attempting to be honest in its intent, GTA 6 will never make up for the GaaS-ification of one of the most revered single-player developers in the industry.

... the article also doesn't mention that Rockstar is at least teaming up with the original studio of Max Payne for the remakes of the first two, which considering Rockstar's last decade is pretty significant.

[MontyeKristo]

Why was it canceled?

[porkChop]

From what I understand, Rockstar had a lot of projects in development. Max Payne 3, GTA V, GTA IV's expansions, RDR, Agent, etc. It seems like they lost faith in Bully 2 and started moving devs to their other projects. Work continued until some time in 2010, and a playable 8 hour demo/vertical slice was finished. At that point Rockstar decided they didn't want the New England team to continue with it.

It was likely because Bully wasn't a big seller and plans for Bully 2 were really ambitious, so it would have been considerably more expensive than the first game. A world 3 to 4 times the size of the original, but you could enter every single building. A new, realistic glass shattering tech. A karma/honor system. Tree climbing mechanics. A lot of the tech and innovations created for the game ended up being implemented in the other games.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Buly 2 we need it.

[SonyStyled]

And call the sequel Bully? The ll being roman numeral for “Buly 2” lol.
I’d love a sequel to Bully… for almost 20 years now (forget what year it released), but a reimagining would be better over a sequel considering the years passed

[specialguest]

No we don't. In this age of wokeness and the political climate, we already know which direction a Bully 2 will swing hard towards

[hotnickles]

The newer generations couldn’t handle another bully. Look how toned down GTA is now. Didn’t they remove a bunch of things from the GTA remasters? Rockstar was a champion of outlandish free speech. They are as weak willed as the rest now.

[roadkillers]

I do see this, but there’s nothing from the original that needs to be toned down. What do you see in the original Bully that would be unacceptable now?

That game was timeless. Actually very “progressive” imo

[stloony]

The mere title of "Bully" alone would be enough for the wokies to think anyone who plays this game is supporting bullying and suicide and who knows what else.

[hotnickles]

The entire premise. You are from the time of the original. It’s not offensive to me either lol. I’m not talking about us. Progressive compared to what? 90s ultra Christians?

[deathtok]

I’m not telling you to side with or against progressives but it was conservatives that tried to ban Rockstar games—repeatedly.

[hotnickles]

I don’t side with either of them, they are both a joke and deserve to be made fun of in true rockstar fashion. The conservatives of the 90s who tried to ban rockstar are largely non-existent these days. At least in any meaningful way. They were thoroughly defeated. That wing became the daily wire types out in left field doing their own thing.

Rockstar was never scared of the conservatives. They didn’t change for conservatives, they took them all the way to the Supreme Court.

Rockstar is terrified of “progressives” if you want to call them that. They wouldn’t mock modern American culture even though it’s never been more needed. If they did it would certainly avoid anything controversial.

[Profchaos]

@stloony yup but then again I brought "Canis Canem edit" but bully that name didn't pass the censors in Australia

[sadraiden]

"Outlandish free speech" is a myopic take on what R* does with their games. Sure, that's still the order of the day, but there's a point to the dialogue in the games. They're not just dropping hard n-bombs for the sake of being edgy, they're creating raunchy scripts that generally have some kind of relevant satire in them.

If you think that GTA is toned down now, I would ask what you truly mean by that. In what way is GTAV toned down over Vice City and 3? It wasn't even until San Andreas did they say "fuck" in the games.

[hotnickles]

I’m talking about the satire. I loved that rockstars whole mission was to make fun of how dumb American culture can be. They wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole these days. They are terrified, they tow the line like everyone else. I recognize their former brilliance and I’m American. And I also recognize their current cowardice.

[Profchaos]

I'm coming to the end of a replay of vc there's plenty of f bombs you don't hire ray liota and not swear.

There was some in 3 but the writing in general feels largely like an afterthought sand that's because it mostly was they didn't even realise that claude didn't speak until the end of development

[stloony]

Thank God Trey and Matt are still kicking it.

[hotnickles]

Even they have toned down with the times lol

[Profchaos]

They removed like 1 joke that aged poorly in today's climate yet the definitive edition changed nothing all the love first missions nothing changed

[hotnickles]

Well todays climate is why you can’t have bully 2 or a champion rockstar. Mocking is now hate speech and hate speech is violence.

What you are left with is the sanitary saints row remake. Is that really what the newer generations want? I’m honestly not sure. I wouldn’t be surprised.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

As much as I wish it wasn't true, with today's political climate, I can't see how they could get the green light for Bully 2.

[sadraiden]

I would argue that the potential for a quality follow up to Bully never existed. The first game, despite not having any of the controversial content that conservatives and concerned parents were clutching their pearls at, was a one off. It was created during the absolute height of Rockstar popularity thanks to creative direction from Dan Houser (remember how utterly amazing R* games were in the mid 00s?). R* has always maintained some degree of cultural relevance while conceptualizing their games.

We were lucky that GTA3 existed, but we were doubly lucky that there was a renaissance of Scarface and 80s nostalgia during that same period that made Vice City an immediate hit despite being released only 1 year later. People clamored for GTA6 for years, without realizing there wasn't a cultural shift big enough since 2013 to necessitate another round of biting social commentary taking the form of a GTA game. The same thing goes for Bully, although any new commentary around the state of bullying is going to be completely in bad taste.

With our current landscape of sextortion crime, child suicide, among other examples of extreme violence, I'm not sure there's a way to creatively have fun with that. You want noogies, wedgies, and spitballs? That's in the first game.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

It might…

[SyntheticForm]

I don't have much hope for GTA 6 anyway. Rockstar will probably take it in a woke (for a modern audience) direction. I am utterly uninterested in that.

[deathtok]

Or you could be honest and not ignore the groups and people that actually tried to get these Rockstar games banned…

[hotnickles]

Why are we ignoring the groups that were defeated and spanked 30 years ago? Because they were defeated and spanked 30 years ago. Dead honest.

[Bathyj]

To hell with built.
Give us manhunt.

[gold_drake]

wasnt bully 2 cancelled ages ago?

wats that got to do with GTA 6?

[z2g]

agree to disagree, but more importantly theres a big timeline discrepancy in trying to make this point anyway. they don't really overlap. Also - i'd just like to point out that gtaV has now sold 175 million units now and Red Dead is coming in second at 50 million, i can see how Rockstar could make such a decision to cancel Bully 2 when Bully sold a meager 1.6 million in comparison.

[Muigi]

What got cancelled was the next gen version of RDR2.

[Hereandthere]

for real?

[Muigi]

Yeah

[deathtok]

The debate about “wokeness” here is cringe. Y’all just going to ignore that it was largely conservative Christian outrage that tried to ban Rockstar games lol

Bully (2005-2006):
Conservative Christian Miami-Dade lawyer Jack Thompson filed suit to block this game and tried to corral his Republican Congressman into backing it.

Manhunt 2 (2007):
These family groups are conservative Christians.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/g...

[Noskypeno]

There's always extremes on all sides. Like not all feminists are starting a war with men. There's a very wide range of Christianity, some sections are as strict as something from a Muslim country, and some are very free, to sum it up, there are old testament Christians, mostly pentecostals or southern Baptist the type that really want to let you know you're going to hell if you don't do everything they say, and then there's the new testament Christians, mostly non denominational that you wouldn't know are Christian until they tell you, and even then it's like they are still very relatable, like the Chris Pratt types that go to Hillsong, a very non judgemental church, that anybody can feel comfortable in.

[deathtok]

Sure but also my commentary was addressing the comments blaming “wokeness” for toning down Rockstar when historically it was literally the opposite.

[Noskypeno]

Right now the things censoring the media is the "current year" types. The kinds that say that humour was only acceptable in the 60s, therefore it's not ok now. There's always exceptions like SouthPark, or Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle, but a lot of the media is afraid of offending or want to get approval from a very small minority. But yeah those types of Christians are embarrassing as well.

[hotnickles]

The conservatives of the 90s who tried to ban rockstar are largely non-existent these days. At least in any meaningful way. They were thoroughly defeated. That wing became the daily wire types out in left field doing their own thing.

Rockstar was never scared of the conservatives. They didn’t change for conservatives, they took them all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

Rockstar is terrified of “progressives” if you want to call them that. They wouldn’t mock modern American culture even though it’s never been more needed. If they did it would certainly avoid anything controversial. It is cringe, you are right.

[deathtok]

Feel free to google “book bans” but I saw this and well… I’ll just leave this here.

https://gizmodo.com/conserv...

[hotnickles]

No thanks. You’re trying too hard.

You will mention what Jack Thompson “tried to do” while ignoring what actually happened to Jack Thompson. He got his PP slapped out of a law license for harassment. Rockstar buried that dude.

You can defend self-censoring crybaby mobs and focus on dead fights if you want but don’t call others ignorant without recognizing your own hypocrisy. The conservatives you are crying about have been reduced to crying about drag show story time on Twitter and gay sex books in children’s classrooms. They have zero power. The point you are trying to make only validates mine. They were defeated, thoroughly.

[1nsomniac]

Yea people need to realise that Rockstar isn’t the same team that made the previous great games. We’ve now seen several years of relentlessly bad decisions and extremely poor releases. Followed by PR speeches filled with out right lies and blaming it on customers.

Rockstar are garbage! ….and that’s a sad fact.

[MontyeKristo]

Bully was one of my favorite games. There is plenty of room for growth and expansion of that series. Hopefully they revisit it soon..

[GhostScholar]

GTA is third on my list of their games. I prefer bully and red dead. I would rather never have another gta than for that bully game to be cancelled.

[LucidIllusion]

Never understood the Bully craze.

[Profchaos]

Realistically bully 2 didn't stand a chance it's an IP from a time where development was a fraction of the cost and time so more new IP and projects could thrive.

Today development can really take 5 plus years for the level of polish Rockstar like in their HD era games.

I'm positive we will never see an experimental game from them again if it's not a proven IP it's not getting made. Rockstar made 17 games in total for the 6th gen. The 7th only had 6 excluding DLC and the 8th had 1 native game.

[Demetrius]

I think it’s best to just keep bully as a stand-alone titles too many grown sensitive babies that would try n get it canceled smh it’s ridiculous how mfs think virtual worlds have anything to do with what’s going on with the REAL world smh it’s so retarded how some adults think it’s sad where times are headed lol