Bully 2, has been asked for by fans of the franchise ever since the first one released. The game’s mechanics, narrative, and most of all, its take-no-prisoners approach are one of a kind. The game was first released by Rockstar Games in the year 2006 for PlayStation 2. A remastered version of the game, which was called, Bully: Scholarship Edition was released for Xbox 360 and Wii. The Windows version followed Rockstar Games’ long-standing trend and was released in 2008, two years later.
Rumors for the Bully 2 being in the works have been doing the rounds ever since Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two Interactive’s CEO mentioned the title in an earnings call. Another headline related to Rockstar was the GTA 6 development leaks that happened in September 2022. Now, Bully 2 also finds itself to have leaks associated with it. This happened when the PDB file (abbreviation for Program-Debug Data Base) for GTA 5 mentioned Bully 2. In laypeople’s terms, PDB is essentially a file that helps with the game’s debugging at the time of development.
Bully 2: Could We Be Treated to the Cult Classic’s Sequel?
Bully 2 has no official confirmation by Rockstar Games, the franchise has hardly been mentioned after the game’s last re-release for the PlayStation 4 in 2016. Ever since then the franchise has been presumably concluded.
The rumors for the release started surfacing when Rockstar’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive’s CEO, Strauss Zelnick mentioned the title directly in the earnings call. Bully wasn’t Rockstar’s only celebrated title from the past which was mentioned. There were also mentions of Max Payne and L.A. Noire. While all of this may have been a mere tribute to the Studio’s legacy and the titles’ contribution towards Rockstar’s pedigree. Fans and their speculations began as and when the news broke out.
Now as per a post that surfaced on the subreddit, r/GamingLeaksAndRumors, Bully 2, was mentioned in GTA 5‘s PDB file. The leaks were also mentioned in various Twitter posts by various Twitter handles. the leak also shows other familiar titles mentioned as acronyms. The PDB file contains a line that says “unique_key_gta4“, which most probably refers to GTA 4. Other lines also follow the same format. The first words are “unique” and “key” separated by an underscore which is then followed by a string that seems like a game title.
Apart from the apparent mention of GTA 4, there is of course, Bully 2 as mentioned earlier, a string titled “rdr2”, which is mostly likely, Red Dead Redemption 2 in the same underscore-separated format. There are also other strings like, “mc4” which could be short for Midnight Club 4 which was titled Midnight Club: Los Angeles by Rockstar Games. Along with these, there is also“mp3” which might be Max Payne 3. Other strings include the likes of “gta5_pc”, “gta5_ps4” and “jimmy”, the last one is coincidentally the name of Bully‘s protagonist.
Again, the leak is very barebones in its nature and doesn’t imply anything about Bully 2 being in development directly. However, as mentioned earlier, fans tend to speculate about unannounced games in development.
All of this could have also meant that the game was indeed in development at the time of GTA 5’s development for consoles and PC, but was shelved or worse, completely canceled. It is anyone’s guess as to what Rockstar’s plans are in the near and distant future apart from GTA 6. While discovering the PDB Leaks, apart from Bully 2, there were also mentions of Rockstar’s canceled mode for GTA 5 which was called Cops and Crooks.
While Bully 2 might be in the works if the leak is indeed true and the mention of the franchise in Take-Two’s earnings call was more than just a tribute. The chances of the game being worked upon are reduced because the project might be infeasible in the current scenario. The first title’s release occurred at a time when society wasn’t as it is today. And a game glorifying elements of violence, vandalism, and other problematic behavior among kids is certainly not the best idea.
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