Bully release date on GTA+ subscription service confirmed by Rockstar Games

After a release date was leaked on social media of when Rockstar Games' cult classic title Bully will be made available on its GTA+ premium subscription service, the studio itself has now confirmed it.

Bully, also known as Canis Canim Edit, is a 2006 open-world action-adventure game which follows teenager James 'Jimmy' Hopkins who is involuntarily enrolled at boarding school for a year.

He attempts to become more popular with certain cliques, puts his efforts to rise through the ranks of the school system and, of course, gets himself into trouble along the way.

Earlier in 2024, Rockstar announced Bully would be coming to GTA+ and now it appears an exact date for this has been leaked on X / Twitter.

A post from Ben, who posts as @videotechuk, said: "According to the email Rockstar sent, Bully: Scholarship Edition (Xbox Series X / S) and the PS4 version of Bully (PS5) will debut on GTA+ on August 20."

And now Rockstar itself has confirmed this.

Rockstar is understood to have almost released Bully on Nintendo DS.

Fans have also previously been really keen on the idea of a sequel, Bully 2.

It's reported Bully 2 actually went into development in 2008 but was shelved in late 2009 in favour of Max Payne 3.

A Reddit user found the LinkedIn profile of Jon Young who was the lead video editor for the research department and listed were titles he said he worked on.

Bully 2 & 3 were mentioned in 2008, which fits with the development timeframe, but it's speculated if this could be a typo.

In 2011, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser is understood to have said Bully 2 could come back in the future with Rockstar president Sam Houser saying a decade ago he had many different ideas for a sequel, the last official line on the game.

Bully: Anniversary Edition was released on iOS and Android in December 2016, 10 years on.

Rumours have been on and off ever since, but Bully seems to be in Rockstar's thoughts as Easter eggs still appear in more recent titles like GTA Online and Red Dead Redemption 2 - there's even a trophy / achievement in RDR2 called 'Endless Summer', the name of a post-credits chapter in Bully.

In 2022, Tez2, reported to be a Rockstar insider, speculated if Bully 2 could be reconsidered after GTA 6, adding: "It has been shelved but it went through two years of active development."

Hope was reintroduced when mention of Bully 2 was found in GTA 5 code that was leaked shortly before the GTA 6 trailer came out at the end of 2023 but it all went quiet again as hype for the new Grand Theft Auto entry went into overdrive.

GTA 6 is scheduled to release in 2025 and, if Tez2 is right and Bully 2 is focused on after that, 2026 will mark 20 years since the original came out.

If Rockstar is serious about a Bully sequel, surely news of any plans in the original's 20th anniversary year would be the perfect opportunity to announce it?

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