Solid your thoughts again to the top of final yr, and it’s possible you’ll bear in mind we reported {that a} group of volunteer modders had united to develop a web based mode for Rockstar’s Bully (also called Canis Canem Edit in some elements of the world). Quick-forward just some brief months later, nevertheless, and now the Bully on-line venture is “shutting down endlessly.”
Bully was a humorous motion recreation that put gamers within the position of highschool outcast Jimmy whereas attending a pretentious personal college. Followers have lengthy known as for a sequel, which was as soon as in growth at Rockstar’s New England studio within the late 2000s, and whereas Bully 2 was clearly by no means launched, a few of its concepts made it into different Rockstar video games like Crimson Useless Redemption 2.
Although the sport was developed to be a single-player expertise, the mod, which has been in growth for years and totally launched solely final month, allowed gamers to group up for minigames, roleplay, compete in racing, and face off in opposition to NPCs, immediately drawing the eye of followers… and IP proprietor Rockstar, it appears.
“Coming with unhappy information in the present day,” wrote one of many Fats Pigeon Growth group on the venture’s Discord. “The Bully On-line venture is shutting down endlessly, which sadly means all the next goes to occur in 24 hours.”
The put up reported that the Bully On-line server would shut down, growth of Bully On-line scripts would cease, the supply code would disappear, and all webpages referencing it might be eliminated, together with the launcher (which has seemingly already occurred). All Bully On-line account knowledge can even be “completely deleted” and even Discord channels associated to the mod are getting nuked.
The group held off on detailing why this was occurring, solely confirming that lead dev SWEGTA hopes to add an explanatory video to his YouTube channel. “For now, although, know this was not one thing we wished,” the assertion added.
Rockstar mum or dad firm Take-Two has a historical past of clamping down on fan initiatives, though after it acquired the modding group behind the wildly in style Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers FiveM and RedM again in 2023, it was felt a change in strategy may need been in place. In actual fact, simply yesterday (January 14), we reported that Rockstar had even launched an official market the place creators can promote mods… which could possibly be the difficulty, as some gamers recommend.
“I feel everyone knows the rationale, it is acquired all the pieces to do with Rockstar’s new CFX launch mod website the place they make extra grasping revenue for [publisher] Take-Two Interactive by placing pay-walls on mods,” posited one sad participant. “I count on extra mods to be shut down because the months go on with this new CFX market.”
That mentioned, as this commenter factors out, Bully On-line was already successfully paywalled to donors of the venture, which is broadly frowned upon throughout the modding house. “Not shocking in any respect,” they mentioned. “Dude was just about asking to get shutdown the second he paywalled early entry to this.”
As for if there’ll ever be an official Bully 2? Dan Houser, Rockstar Video games co-founder and the author behind the studio’s greatest video games, together with the Grand Theft Auto and Crimson Useless Redemption sequence, not too long ago sat down for an unique interview with IGN, revealing Bully 2 did not occur due to “bandwidth points.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and guide with 15+ years expertise working with among the world’s greatest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.