New details about the now-canceled Bully 2 reveal that the game was aiming to tackle something that Grand Theft Auto has yet to do. Rockstar is known for its sprawling open worlds that are absurdly dense. Some of this comes through the number of unique environments, the people that populate it, and more, but there is something that has always sort of rubbed players the wrong way. Bully 2 was going to have a lot of enterable interiors, unlike GTA which largely reserves its buildings for stores and homes.
Rockstar's sequel was being developed in the late 2000s, likely for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but it had a lot of ambition. For starters, Bully 2's map was three times larger than the map of the original game allowing for a lot of freedom. Of course, in perspective, this wouldn't come close to the giant settings of Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto 5, but given the player would be traversing the world on foot or by skateboard or bike, this was a pretty big world to live in.
According to a new article from Game Informer, Rockstar planned to allow players to enter every single building they found in Bully 2. This could be just by letting players walk through the door or by allowing them to break in. For the Xbox 360 era, this was pretty ambitious. Even by today's standards, this is something that hasn't really been achieved outside of another Rockstar title, Red Dead Redemption 2. In many instances, Bully 2 influenced Red Dead Redemption 2 and allowed the canceled game's greatest ideas to live on.
What GTA Could Learn From Bully 2
However, a lot of these ideas wouldn't see the light of day for close to ten years after they had been shelved. In that time, a whole new generation of consoles came along, making it hard to imagine Rockstar would've been able to truly realize some of these concepts such as the enterable buildings on Xbox 360 and PS3. After all, this is something that even Grand Theft Auto 5 failed to utilize. Perhaps that's because the world is so large and has so much going on that it would only be possible in a smaller game that's focusing on density rather than scale.
As of right now, there are rumblings that Bully 2 will still happen. Whether or not this concept could be fully realized two console generations later remains to be seen, but there is a palpable demand for this game still. Rockstar has no shortage of grand ambitions for each of its games, but the more restrained yet equally focused approach to something like Bully 2 would make for a more than welcome appetizer for Grand Theft Auto 6.
Source: Game Informer