{"id":457976,"date":"2025-09-28T13:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T13:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457976\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T13:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T13:37:11","slug":"why-did-we-never-get-bully-2-rockstar-co-founder-dan-houser-explains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/457976\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did We Never Get Bully 2? Rockstar Co-Founder Dan Houser Explains"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rockstar Games has several beloved IPs under its belt. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/grand_theft_auto_6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grand Theft Auto<\/a> goes without saying, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps4\/red_dead_redemption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Dead Redemption<\/a> has proven massively successful too \u2014 but a real fan favourite is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps2\/bully\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bully<\/a>, also known as Canis Canem Edit.<\/p>\n<p>The action adventure about a boy navigating his life through boarding school was a big hit on PS2, but despite this, it never received a follow-up. How come?<\/p>\n<p>Well, this question was thrown at Rockstar alumnus Dan Houser, co-founder of the company, during a rare <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GdAYM7QNIOA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">interview with IGN<\/a>. Here&#8217;s the clip:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" align=\"center\"><p>Rockstar Founder Dan Houser confirms why BULLY 2 never happened.<\/p>\n<p>He blames it on &#8220;bandwidth issues&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Houser further adds &#8220;If you\u2019ve got a small lead creative team and a small leadership crew you just can\u2019t do all the projects you want.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OMOBi7cOe5\">pic.twitter.com\/OMOBi7cOe5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LegacyKillaHD\/status\/1972021277188935996?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">September 27, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I think it was just bandwidth issues,&#8221; Houser says. &#8220;If you&#8217;ve got a small lead creative team and a small senior leadership crew, you just can&#8217;t do all the projects you want.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He adds that his current company, Absurd Ventures, is structuring itself in such a way that it can handle more than one project at a time. &#8220;How we&#8217;re structuring Absurd, we&#8217;re trying to do two projects with a fairly small team, and it&#8217;s really trying to think through that. How can we do that, and keep them both moving?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, Rockstar is an enormous operation these days, with multiple studios and hundreds of employees.<\/p>\n<p>However, back when it was making games like Bully, it wasn&#8217;t working on quite the same scale, so it&#8217;s possible that it had to pick its battles when making numerous titles.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, his response here is very similar to comments he made about a Bully sequel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/news\/2011\/11\/there_will_be_tears_rockstar_games_chose_to_develop_max_payne_3_over_bully_sequel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">over a decade ago<\/a>, when he said Rockstar opted to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps3\/max_payne_3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Max Payne 3<\/a> rather than Bully 2 due to &#8220;limited bandwidth&#8221;. He&#8217;s consistent, at the very least.<\/p>\n<p>Houser&#8217;s comments probably don&#8217;t tell the full story, though; we&#8217;re sure there will be various other reasons Bully 2 has yet to happen, especially as time moves forward and projects like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps5\/grand_theft_auto_6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grand Theft Auto 6<\/a> become absurdly expensive, multi-year endeavours.<\/p>\n<p>Would you like a sequel to Bully? Do you think the moment has passed for that to happen, or could we yet see the return of Jimmy Hopkins? Let us know in the comments section below.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text source\">[source <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GdAYM7QNIOA\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GdAYM7QNIOA\" target=\"_blank\">youtube.com<\/a>, via <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/x.com\/LegacyKillaHD\/status\/1972021277188935996\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LegacyKillaHD\/status\/1972021277188935996\">x.com<\/a>, <a class=\"external\" title=\"External Link: https:\/\/insider-gaming.com\/bully-2-rockstar-development-bandwidth-dan-houser\/\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/insider-gaming.com\/bully-2-rockstar-development-bandwidth-dan-houser\/\" target=\"_blank\">insider-gaming.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n<dl>\n<dt>Related Games<\/dt>\n<dd class=\"first\">\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<p class=\"avatar\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1744111449_759_avatar.jpg\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Stephen Tailby\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Stephen has been part of the Push Square team for over six years, bringing boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of video games to his role as Assistant Editor. Having grown up playing every PlayStation console to date, he&#8217;s developed an eclectic taste, with particular passion for indie games, arcade racers, and puzzlers. He&#8217;s also our go-to guy for Sonic-related matters, much to his delight\/chagrin.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rockstar Games has several beloved IPs under its belt. Grand Theft Auto goes without saying, and Red Dead&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[153492,2403,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-457976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-bully","9":"tag-rockstar-games","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115282198811721698","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}