Forged your thoughts again to the top of final yr, and it’s possible you’ll keep 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 only a few brief months later, nevertheless, and now the Bully on-line venture is “shutting down ceaselessly.”
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 Pink Useless Redemption 2.
Although the sport was developed to be a single-player expertise, the mod, which has been in growth for years and absolutely launched solely final month, allowed gamers to staff 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 staff on the venture’s Discord. “The Bully On-line venture is shutting down ceaselessly, which sadly means all the next goes to occur in 24 hours.”
The publish 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 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 taking place, 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 father or mother firm Take-Two has a historical past of clamping down on fan tasks, though after it acquired the modding staff behind the wildly common Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers FiveM and RedM again in 2023, it was felt a change in method 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 counsel.
“I feel everyone knows the explanation, it is bought every part to do with Rockstar’s new CFX launch mod web site 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 largest video games, together with the Grand Theft Auto and Pink Useless 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.