Despite lining their pockets with fat wads of cash, most of Rockstar is getting ready for Grand Theft Auto Online's launch next week, but the game's chief writer seems to have other aspirations.
It seems that another of the company's gems might be set for a possible return. Back in 2006, you may remember a certain game catching headlines before release as a schoolyard GTA, only to later win accolades as another hit from the company. That game was Bully, and Dan Houser wants to do another.
When Polygon asked Houser about the possibility of a follow-up, he responded, "I know I want to...Well, hopefully, you never know. There's a lot of directions I could go with that one, it's funny." Funny Houser should mention other directions, because there's an interesting fan theory going around...
A few other of Rockstar's games, Manhunt for example, take place in the same universe as Grand Theft Auto, and interestingly enough, Bully is no exception. Players with keen memories and ears may remember Jimmy Hopkins' alma mater, Bullworth Academy, mentioned in an episode of Grand Theft Auto IV's reality TV show, "I'm Rich." Different models of GTA vehicles are also seen driving around the town streets. Also, with characters like The Lost's Johnny appearing in the latest GTA, does that mean we could see Hopkins all grown up, jacking cars and running heists in a future GTA?
Hopkins might have been a miscreant, but Houser thinks that if we'll see Jimmy again, he'll be in a game all his own, not on the streets of Vice or Liberty City.
"I never saw him as being that level of degenerate," he said. "I saw him as a bad teen, because he comes from a tough home, who could go either direction. He's not going to be a carjacker. He's too white collar for that already. He's at a shit private school, but he's going to end up being really happy because he's at the worst bit of his life, or being a sort of messed up white collar doofus.
"He was an unpleasant soul, but he had a heart. To some extant you could say the same was true of [Grand Theft Auto 4's] Niko in a bizarre way. But [Jimmy's] not trying to burn down the school, he's more trying to stand up to injustice."
Rumors of another Bully have been around for the last few years now. Houser last mentioned the game when talking about Max Payne 2 back in 2011, saying, "So we knew that we didn't want to start doing the Bully sequel instantly at that second with those guys -- even though it is a property that, like Max, we adore and might come back to in the future. There was just no impetus to do that then. So we said, "You can do Max, and then we will see what we can do with Bully." So it was really waiting for the slot to open up and the group to open up to at least start work on it."
More recently, this past July, Rockstar filed a trademark application for Bully, leading some to believe the company was getting a head start of developing a sequel, but there's been no mention of another Bully game since.
For now, it looks like we'll just have to wait and see.
