Rockstar is gearing up for the launch of GTA 6, but, of course, Grand Theft Auto isn’t the only series the developer is known for. Alongside the likes of the beloved Red Dead Redemption games, there are many fans of another open-world adventure from the studio: Bully.

Released in 2006 and originally known in Europe as Canis Canem Edit, Bully tells the story of unruly student Jimmy Hopkins getting in and out of trouble during a year at Bullworth Academy. A smaller-scale, less X-rated version of GTA, it launched to critical acclaim. But the road towards launch was far from easy.

“The development was hard,” former Rockstar VP and writer of Bully, Dan Houser, said in a new interview as part of our IGN30 Icons Series. “The game was in trouble all of the time. It was difficult. It was an out-there concept. We were struggling with it. I wasn't sure it was going to be any good. We really wanted it to come together. It was really fun afterwards because it came together really well. The team did a great job. It was a sort of really strong game at the end. It kind of came together very late.”

Houser went on to explain why the development of Bully proved such a challenge, coming as it did just over a year after GTA: San Andreas. “New IP is very stressful because you're doing something that no one's ever done before,” he said. “And particularly that game, there was all of this controversy around it to do with the name, or people misunderstood it when they'd never seen it.

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