Bully’s artstyle was originally far different, however a mandate from Rockstar Games meant the look had to be reworked in the middle of development.
Despite being somewhat of a GTA-styled experience based around school-year antics as opposed to being involved with crimes, murders, and the like, Bully still sticks out as one of Rockstar’s most unique titles – perhaps that’s down to working with limitations knowing it can’t be taken too far due to it involving children. And despite a similarity, it ended up with a unique art design that wasn’t quite GTA but still invoked it somewhat, and it turns out that was a “happy-accident.”
“The game was pitched to me as an Americana piece. The goal was to have it look and feel more akin to a Norman Rockwell painting,” Bully environment artist Andrew Wood told Retro Gamer (issue 277), who described it as “cool because stylized graphics weren’t really what they are today.” However, “A mandate came in from the Rockstar head office, midway through production, to make it more photoreal,” Which Wood explains is the moment “when the art team pretty much purged itself from the studio.”
Wood explains “we had to redo all the textures. We had to revisit models that were more stylized and wonky-looking – straighten them out, readjust them.” But despite the amount of extra work required due to this – which no doubt added to the crunch Wood described as “Brutal” – Wood explains it actually worked out in the end, saying “In the scramble of trying to shift gears and change the art direction, we ended up with the mix of both that, in a very broken, strange, happy-accident kind of way, really worked for that particular game and narrative. It has its own identity because of that decision.”
Rockstar “laughed at all the controversy” surrounding Bully’s name before the cult classic open-world game launched: “They were freaking out over something they didn’t really know anything about.”
