Solid your thoughts again to the top of final yr, and you could 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 components of the world). Quick-forward only a few quick months later, nonetheless, and now the Bully on-line venture is “shutting down perpetually.”
Bully was a humorous motion sport that put gamers within the position of highschool outcast Jimmy whereas attending a pretentious personal college. Followers have lengthy referred to as for a sequel, which was as soon as in improvement 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 Pink Lifeless Redemption 2.
Although the sport was developed to be a single-player expertise, the mod, which has been in improvement for years and absolutely launched solely final month, allowed gamers to staff up for minigames, roleplay, compete in racing, and face off towards NPCs, immediately drawing the eye of followers… and IP proprietor Rockstar, it appears.
“Coming with unhappy information at the moment,” wrote one of many Fats Pigeon Improvement staff on the venture’s Discord. “The Bully On-line venture is shutting down perpetually, which sadly means all the next goes to occur in 24 hours.”
The publish reported that the Bully On-line server would shut down, improvement of Bully On-line scripts would cease, the supply code would disappear, and all webpages referencing it will be eliminated, together with the launcher (which has seemingly already occurred). All Bully On-line account information may also be “completely deleted” and even Discord channels associated to the mod are getting nuked.
The staff 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 needed,” the assertion added.
Rockstar mum or dad firm Take-Two has a historical past of clamping down on fan tasks, though after it acquired the modding staff behind the wildly widespread Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers FiveM and RedM again in 2023, it was felt a change in strategy might need been in place. Actually, simply yesterday (January 14), we reported that Rockstar had even launched an official market the place creators can promote mods… which may very well be the difficulty, as some gamers counsel.
“I feel everyone knows the rationale, it is obtained every part 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 stated, 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 area. “Not shocking in any respect,” they stated. “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 largest video games, together with the Grand Theft Auto and Pink Lifeless Redemption collection, just lately 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 advisor with 15+ years expertise working with a number of the world’s largest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.