Summary
A formerRockstar Gamesdeveloper has revealed that the studio was once working on aNintendo DSport ofBully, as well as aGame Boy Advanceversion of The Warriors that was “essentially complete”.
As exciting as it is to think thatwe’re just over a year away from the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto 6, it’s still a bit of a shame that Rockstar has gone from making several unique games per console generation to just one or two. Back in the ye olde days of the PS2, Rockstar was firing hits out left right and centre,including smaller titles like Bully and The Warriors.
While both of those games are still considered cult classics in Rockstar’s award-winning stable, they don’t get anywhere near as much attention as they should (despite Rockstar recently listing Bully as one of its most popular franchises). That might have been different, though, if a recent report regarding handheld ports of Bully and The Warriors is to be believed.
Rockstar Was Once Working On Handheld Ports Of Bully And The Warriors
Earlier today,Time Extension released a report that suggested that Rockstar Games was once working on handheld versionsof Bully and The Warriors. This information comes courtesy of an anonymous Rockstar developer, who revealed a ton of previously unkown details about the cancelled projects.
The first game detailed in the report is a Game Boy Advance port of The Warriors, which was apparently being worked on by Rockstar Leeds. The GBA version of The Warriors waspowered by the same engine that Rockstar used for the handheld version of Max Payne, so it likely would have looked the same.
The Warriors did at least get a portable release on the PSP, although the Game Boy Advance version would have been a much different experience.
According to the source, The Warriors on GBA was cancelled because Rockstar wasn’t “really seeing good returns on Nintendo”, which might be because the developer didn’t like promoting M-rated games. The Warriors was apparently basically finished, so it’s a bit of a surprise that a version of it hasn’t turned up somewhere.
The second, and to me at least, more interesting game detailed by the former Rockstar developer is a Nintendo DS version of Bully, which was also worked on by Rockstar Leeds. It didn’t get as far along into development as The Warriors, but the source claims that it would have been similar to GTA: Chinatown Wars with a top-down view.
“We had Bully on the DS. Right after Chinatown Wars, we did Bully. The same thing. Top down and everything. But it didn’t make it too far.”
