Summary
Rockstar came close to bringingThe WarriorsandBullytoNintendoconsoles, according to a newly emerged report. However, both of these purportedNintendoports are said to have ultimately been abandoned for different reasons.
The WarriorsandBullyemerged during Rockstar’s fruitful mid-aughts, releasing exactly one year apart, in October 2005 and 2006, respectively. Both titles were met with critical acclaim and are still considered to be amongRockstar’s weirdest and most memorable games.
Rockstar Reportedly Scrapped Near-Finished The Warriors GBA Port
Some 16 months following its debut on the PS2 and the original Xbox,The Warriorsalso made its way to the PlayStation Portable. In between those two events, theGTAdeveloper shelved the game’s Game Boy Advance port,Time Extensionreports, citing former Rockstar employees familiar with the matter. This version ofThe Warriorsis said to have been in the works at Rockstar Leeds, then known as Möbius Entertainment. It ran on the same proprietary engine used for thenow-forgotten GBA port ofMax Payne, which was made by the same studio.
Much likeMax Payne,The Warriorswas reimagined as a top-down action game in order to account for the technical limitations of the GBA hardware. It also made use of its unique capabilities, like offering support for four-player co-op multiplayer usingNintendo’s Link Cable, as per the same source. And while the project was near-finished, Rockstar reportedly scrapped it in 2005 and focused on the game’s PSP version. One of Time Extension’s unnamed sources cited the poor sales of the company’s previous Nintendo console ports as one of the reasons for the game’s cancellation. The fact that Nintendo wasn’t eager to help market M-rated titles and that Sony’s first portable system was gaining momentum at the time are also said to have contributed to this purported PSP pivot.
Bully DS Port Was Reportedly on the Cards, As Well
Several years later, Rockstar Leeds tackled a DS version ofBully, as per the same report. The project is said to have started right after the studio wrapped up work onGTA: Chinatown Wars, which hit the market in March 2009. The DS version of the game was supposedly meant to use the same top-down perspective, but “didn’t make it too far” before getting shelved because the studio’s staff was reassigned to a much bigger project.
That was around the time when the company started assisting Team Bondi onLA Noire, making that game the likeliest reason whyBullynever made its way to the DS. According to multiple past reports,Bully 2was also canceled during this turbulent periodfor Rockstar Leeds.
