In the not-so-distant past, a sequel to 2006's Bully was apparently being worked on over at Rockstar New England until being unceremoniously scrapped. That is, if accounts from sources allegedly knowledgable about the project are to be believed. We're in rumor territory folks, so arm yourselves accordingly.
According to VGC, Bully 2 began development sometime in 2008 with Dan Houser and a few of Rockstar's elite taking the first steps towards mapping out its story. It would have followed the first game's main protagonist, Jimmy, as he continued down his path toward academic enlightenment. One of the sources speaking to VGC claimed that, even at the time, it had not been decided whether to have Jimmy beginning a new school year at the fictional Bullworth Academy - which served as the primary setting for the first game - or jumping ahead in the timeline to have him attending college elsewhere, if at all.
In any case, whatever Bully 2 was allegedly shaping up to be - for better or worse - never ended up materializing. After Rockstar's New England-based studio spent anywhere between one year to 18 months building out its concept, the game was ultimately scrapped, and the team that had been working on it were moved to new projects. According to sources, this decision ultimately came down the fact that Bully 2 simply failed to gain momentum.
A “very small slice” of Bully 2 was apparently playable at one point, and even featured some rudimentary open-world gameplay built using Rockstar's proprietary game engine, or RAGE, which has also powered titles such as Max Payne 3, GTA IV, GTA V, and Red Dead Redemption.
That said, these details should be taken with a grain of salt. VGC claims that their sources are "well placed", which leads one to believe that they were directly involved with the project. However, this has not been verified.
Additionally, this new information regarding the "Bully 2 that got away" comes at a time when speculation for a Bully sequel is at an all-time high - in no short part due to the fact that Rockstar has recently started including some not-so-subtle references to the fan-favorite game in both Red Dead Redemption 2 and GTA Online.
Not to say that Bully 2 isn't almost definitely secretly in the works, but it's doubtful that it will resemble anything that Rockstar would have thought up over a decade ago.
