A former Rockstar developer who worked on cult classic open-world boarding school sim Bully says much of the game's story was based on Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser's own life experience.
Bully is the very definition of a cult classic game. It released in 2006 riding on the success of the Grand Theft Auto open-world formula, but condensing it down to a boarding school in the fictional town of Bullworth and starring ill-behaved student Jimmy Hopkins. It reviewed well despite some controversy over its openly violent themes, but didn't come anywhere near GTA's success, maintaining a cult following to this day.
In an interview for the latest issue of Retro Gamer, Bully environment artist Andrew Wood said "there was an energy and vibrancy to the idea" of taking that open-world "logic and putting it in a school playground" that the devs found "very interesting."
Apparently, they also drew from their real-world experiences, whether that's as recipients of bullying or as Jimmy Hopkins-like delinquents themselves.
"We knew that a lot of the experiences really came from Dan Houser's own childhood," said Wood. "He was projecting himself into the story, but everybody's gone through school and those social cliques and stereotypes. It touched on all our childhood memories."
Although these days Rockstar has its hands full with a little game called GTA 6, there's still demand for a Bully 2 or Bully remake. A fan-made, non-playable remake surfaced a few years ago, but neither Rockstar nor Take-Two have announced anything official. According to Houser himself, who resigned from Rockstar in 2020 and spoke just recently on Bully, said the game never got a sequel simply due to "bandwith issues."
Oh well, here are the best open world games you can play today.
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