How Rockstar Should Make Bully 2
Just how do we tackle a sequel to Rockstar's glorious schoolyard classic?
To say that Rockstar Games have an impressive portfolio would be an understatement.
The mammoth studio revolutionised the open-world genre with Grand Theft Auto and demonstrated profound storytelling with Red Dead Redemption. Max Payne, The Warriors - even Rockstar Table Tennis - all are regarded as supremely polished, critically acclaimed products.
However, one title that fans have been clamouring for a sequel to since its release 13 years ago is their wonderful high-school hijinks simulator, Bully.
Despite pre-emptive controversy and complaints that the game was a "Columbine Simulator", the game was actually quite innocent. Rather than following in the footsteps of would-be school shooters and violent offenders, the gameplay based itself more around pranks and comic-book style mischief. Violence against NPCs carried a penalty, and in the case of violence against younger children, girls or authority figures, an especially harsh one.
Over the last decade-and-a-bit, sequels have been rumoured and teased to no avail.
As recently as October 2019, it was revealed that Rockstar had indeed been working on a sequel since 2010, but cancelled it after just 18 months later, as the project was gathering little momentum.
Bully 2 might be a wonderfully fun pipe dream, but that's not to say we can't theorise and pontificate on what the ideal version would look like.