20 Years Later, Rockstar’s Best Game Still Doesn’t Have the Sequel It Deserved

Rockstar released Bully in October 2006, creating an open-world game set in a school and its surrounding fictional town. Its teenage setting gave the studio’s familiar freedom and mischief a distinctive, more innocent form, while Jimmy Hopkins’s efforts to stand up to bullies gave the story a thread of justice.

The game received an 87/100 Metascore and followed the success of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, arriving before GTA 4. Players explored Bullworth, tackled missions and used items such as marbles, stink bombs and slingshots; the article argues these had practical uses as well as comic appeal. Twenty years on, the writer laments that Bully has neither a sequel nor a modern remake, while noting that a new instalment would need to reflect changes in school life.