Twenty years after Bully first put players in the shoes of troublemaker Jimmy Hopkins, a community project is bringing the game online. The Bully Online mod, announced October 27, 2025, is being built by a small team led by YouTuber SWEGTA and will open to supporters this December before a wider release in 2026.
The mod shifts the single-player boarding school romp into a persistent, roleplaying-focused experience. Players can pick up jobs, earn cash, buy property, and haul inventory around a fictional New England that mirrors the original game’s town. Classic activities like boxing and go-kart races are included, but the team has built systems aimed at long-form player-driven interaction. SWEGTA and their collaborators describe the project as the product of long-term, quiet work. They say advances in modding tools and community know-how have unlocked features that would have been impractical a few years ago, which is why this attempt is arriving now rather than earlier.
The rollout is being staged. Supporter access will land first via the project’s Ko-fi page, giving early adopters a chance to test roleplay systems and inventory mechanics ahead of the public release in 2026. The team plans to expand systems over time rather than launch everything at once. For players who have waited for more Bully since the original, this is the clearest community-driven route to an online experience yet. Rockstar shows no public plans to return to the franchise, and with GTA 6 on the horizon, this mod fills a gap for fans who want to keep living in that particular sandbox.
If you want to see how the team presents their work, the SWEGTA channel and the project’s supporter page are available for details and signups.
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