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Bully Online's project lead previously dismissed concerns about legal trouble from Rockstar and Take-Two, but if this is what it looks like, he may have spoken too soon
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Bully Online project lead Swegta has announced that the ambitious mod, which added online functionality and a ton of other GTA Online-type stuff to Rockstar's cult classic, has been shut down permanently just one month after it launched. Virtually all traces of the mod and its source code have been scrubbed from the web, with Swegta strongly suggesting some, uh, outside force had something to do with the abrupt shutdown.
"The Bully Online project is shutting down. Thank you all for playing," reads an update on Swegta's official website. No other information was given, but Insider Gaming managed to dig up a screenshot of some messages that a member of Swegta's team shared to discord, and there's a little more information there. None of it is good for fans of the project.
"The Bully Online project is shutting down forever, which unfortunately means all the following is going to happen in 24 hours: our official Bully Online server (on swegta.com) will be shutdown, development of scripts for Bully Online will stop, the source code will be removed from swegta.com, all our webpages referring to it will be removed, the launcher downloads will taken down, and all Bully Online account data will be permanently deleted," reads one message.
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Now, this part is key. The team member then said Swegta is preparing to make a video announcement with more details, but for now, "know this was not something we wanted." I don't want to assume too much, but that really stinks of cease & desist.
Swegta brushed off concerns over Rockstar and Take-Two's lawyers back in October, pointing to the fact that the mod required a legal copy of the game to work and didn't compete with any existing Rockstar products. That said, it's worth pointing out that, while a fully free version was in the books, Bully Online had a paid early access release that may have drawn scrutiny from the IP holder's lawyers. It's too early to say what happened for sure, but it sounds like we'll find out fairly soon.
After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.
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