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<\/p>\nEveryone has their own expectations for Grand Theft Auto 6. While many hope it will live up to the dizzying standards set by GTA 5 and Read Dead Redemption 2, I\u2019d actually like the next installment in the franchise to be less like recent hits and more like GTA 4, San Andreas, and the original Read Dead \u2013 games that had more restraint and, as a result, more focus. Above all, though, I wish the upcoming game would take a page from the textbook of one of the Rockstar\u2019s most overlooked titles: Bully. <\/p>\n
Developed by Rockstar Vancouver and released in 2006, Bully is often described as \u201cGTA with kids\u201d. Instead of a career criminal, you play as unruly teenager Jimmy Hopkins. The setting isn\u2019t some big modern metropolis ruled by rival gangs, but a stuck-in-time New England-style boarding school (aptly named Bullworth Academy) where students are divided into different cliques like jocks and greasers. You steal bikes instead of cars, and when you break the rules, it\u2019s not the cops that come for you, but headmasters and hall monitors. <\/p>\n
Despite the critical and commercial success it enjoyed upon release, Bully is sometimes remembered as the \u201cstep child\u201d or \u201cblack sheep\u201d of Rockstar\u2019s catalog. Not only do I disagree, I\u2019d go as far as saying that Bully is actually Rockstar at its best: charming, atmospheric, and far removed from the direction the developer has taken since. Though similar to a game like Grand Theft Auto 5 on the surface, it was created with a completely different design philosophy, and that\u2019s exactly why it\u2019s the perfect blueprint for GTA 6 \u2013 a game that shouldn\u2019t simply be \u201cGTA 5, but more.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Bigger isn\u2019t always better. GTA 5\u2019s map was larger than any other game in the franchise up to that point, but most of the area outside Los Santos turned out to be empty space. Unlike in, say, Red Dead 2, where the rolling meadows and barren mountainsides serve a thematic purpose, the backcountry of GTA 5 is not a living, breathing world so much as a playground for police chases and sandbox shenanigans. <\/p>\n
Bully has one of the smallest maps of any Rockstar game, comprising only Bullworth Academy itself and the surrounding town. But because space is so limited, hardly any of it went to waste. The campus includes a library, gymnasium, and dormitories, while the town features a carnival, BMX park, and an insane asylum, to name just a few distinct and memorable locations. Put simply, Bully shows it isn\u2019t the quantity of virtual space, but the quality of the content in it, that makes a game world feel believable and immersive. <\/p>\n
Fortunately, there are already some indications that GTA 6\u2019s design philosophy will harken back to Rockstar\u2019s Bully days. Though the game\u2019s map is rumored to be more than two and a half times as large as GTA 5\u2019s, its Florida-inspired setting promises to create a much more striking and cohesive visual footprint that should compensate for any empty space.<\/p>\n
Instead of a cookie-cutter Californian no man\u2019s land, we\u2019ll get Sunshine State idiosyncrasies: luxurious seaside boulevards, alligator-invested swamplands, state-of-the-art theme parks, and white beaches littered with the worst kinds of tourists. GTA 5 gave us a bastardized version of Los Angeles and little else; GTA 6 will draw inspiration from a variety of specific real-world cities and biomes, including Miami, Tampa, Orlando, the Keys, the Everglades, and more. <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think we should be free to dive into those varied locations from the off, though. Bully demonstrates the value of limiting player freedom \u2013 another quality of open-world design that\u2019s long fallen out of fashion. In GTA 5, you need only complete Franklin\u2019s prologue before you\u2019re free to explore the map in its entirety. But this lack of restriction comes at a cost, as reaching a location that\u2019s always been accessible to you isn\u2019t nearly as satisfying as visiting a place that you were previously unable to get to.<\/p>\n
Older Rockstar games did this constantly, and to great effect. San Andreas takes you to three different cities, each of them unlocked at different parts of the story. Similarly, the original Red Dead doesn\u2019t let you go to Mexico until several hours into the game (though there are admittedly one or two ways to glitch yourself across the border). Its sequel also restricts player freedom to some degree, keeping the prologue confined to the snowy Grizzlies West region.<\/p>\n
In Bully, you cannot leave Bullworth Academy until the second chapter. Far from annoying, this setup gives you an opportunity to thoroughly explore the school, which will remain your base of operations throughout the game. Better still, the map opens up at a moment when you are just beginning to get bored of the place. Because we were made to yearn for a change of scenery, our newfound freedom tastes all the sweeter. <\/p>\n
GTA 6 will hopefully return to the days of gated regions. While Vice City is clearly the game\u2019s key metropolis, I\u2019d like to see it as an aspirational destination \u2013 a land of neon lights, loose values, and criminal profit that takes a little work to get to. Places like Port Gellhorn and the Leonida Keys could be stepping stones to the big city, just as San Andreas had us master Los Santos, San Fierro, and Las Venturas in sequence.<\/p>\n
This leads into another, even more valuable lesson that GTA 6 can learn from Bully. In GTA 5, there is a huge disconnect between you and the characters you control. Except for when we play as Trevor, whose volatile personality not only reflects but actively encourages the most haphazardly destructive way to play the game, we rarely get to experience a character\u2019s emotions along with them. <\/p>\n
In Bully, story and gameplay mechanics work side by side to make you identify with Jimmy and share his motivations. After being confined to campus grounds for the first chapter, he\u2019s eager to go into town. You\u2019re excited too \u2013 so excited, in fact, that you\u2019ll probably spend a solid hour vibing, riding around on a stolen bike before starting the next mission. <\/p>\n
Another mechanic that helps ease you into Jimmy\u2019s shoes is the game\u2019s curfew system. After 11 p.m., the school becomes overrun with prefects who\u2019ll send you to bed if they catch you, filling up your Trouble Meter (the higher the meter, the more suspicious and hostile certain NPCs will behave towards you). Avoiding punishment puts you on edge, while making it back to the safety of your dormitory draws out a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n
Emotional responses like these are hard to come by in GTA 5, where the frequent over-the-top police chase action quickly turns numbingly mundane. The same cannot be said for GTA 4 or San Andreas, where character writing and plot development actually made you care for their protagonists. In Bully, the lower stakes and slightly subtler tone allow events to escalate at a more gradual, satisfying pace, ensuring the story remains engaging right until the final face-off with its main antagonist, a sociopathic, unmedicated fellow student named Gary. <\/p>\n
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Unlike its predecessor, GTA 6 does seem poised to treat its playable characters as actual people rather than vehicles for chaos and carnage. Dual protagonists Lucia and Jason, we\u2019re told over and over, will be Bonnie and Clyde-style partners in crime, and as in Bully, story and gameplay could conspire to put the player in the middle of that no doubt complicated relationship. <\/p>\n
Perhaps the most important thing that Bully can teach GTA 6 is the importance of restraint when designing a game. Rockstar wanted GTA 5 to be big \u2013 as big as it possibly could be, both in terms of content and appeal. But by prioritizing size and variety, the developers gave the game a much weaker sense of identity than GTA 4 or San Andreas, both of which were made with very different goals in mind.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the specificity of its setting, Bully has perhaps the strongest identity and atmosphere of any Rockstar game out there. Though full of over-the-top caricatures, Bullworth Academy can be a genuinely oppressive place \u2013 the kind of harsh environment that forces an otherwise well-intentioned kid like Jimmy to toughen up and treat others as shiftily as they treat him. <\/p>\n
The feelings a game evokes stay with you long after you finish playing, strengthening your memory of the overall experience. Though I haven\u2019t done a full playthrough of Bully in years, I can still picture Bullworth Academy\u2019s layout in my head. But drop me anywhere in GTA 5\u2019s gigantic backcountry \u2013 a place I have spent many more hours \u2013 and I\u2019d struggle finding my way back to civilization without looking at the mini-map. <\/p>\n
Despite persistent pleading from the game\u2019s cult following, Bully is unlikely to receive a sequel any time soon. Gone are the days when individual subsidiaries like Rockstar Vancouver (long since part of Rockstar Toronto) could work on their own, original IPs. Whatever Rockstar\u2019s next game will be, it almost certainly won\u2019t be Bully 2. Still, if Rockstar has found a way to inject additional purpose and show extra restraint in its new massive open world, there\u2019s a small chance that the franchise\u2019s feisty spirit will live on through Grand Theft Auto 6.<\/p>\n
Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more.<\/em><\/p>\n
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