Game profile
Bully
At a chaotic boarding school, Jimmy Hopkins navigates cliques, pranks, and classes in a compact open world. The Scholarship Edition brings the 2006 title to current systems and PC with additional content.
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What kind of game this is
At its core this is Action / Sandbox, set in the present day. Visually it is leaning into a retro look, and the overall tone stays somewhere between light and heavy. The world is open, so wandering off and ignoring the main path is part of the deal. It rewards long uninterrupted stretches more than quick check-ins.
Difficulty stays forgiving, so progress rarely depends on your reflexes. The narrative carries the whole thing, and the mechanics serve it. It is a single player experience from start to finish. It runs on 2 platforms. It sits in the budget bracket.
What stands out
- Schoolyard sandbox
- Pranks and cliques
- Compact open world
This fits you if
- you want to live through a story, not just play a system
- exploring for its own sake is the point for you
- you can sit down for a proper long stretch without interruptions
- you like getting lost and ignoring the main objective for hours
- the writing matters more to you than the mechanics
- you want zero frustration and no difficulty wall
Look elsewhere if
- you need real difficulty to stay interested
- you skip cutscenes and want to get to the gameplay
- you only ever get short bursts of play time
- you want to play it side by side with someone
How long is Bully?
About 18 hours in total. At three evenings a week and two hours each, you will be busy for roughly 3 weeks, or 9 sessions.
How the rating ranks
Critics settled on 87 out of 100, which puts it above 71 percent of the 1276 games here and at rank 295 overall. That is mid-table for this database. Not a standout at the top, but solidly rated.
For comparison, Action averages 83 points across the database, so this one sits 4 points above its own genre. The figure rests on 368 collected ratings.
Released in 2006, which makes it 20 years old. A genuine classic, and worth checking how the version you buy holds up today.
The facts
- Release year
- 2006
- Genres
- Action, Sandbox
- Playtime
- approx. 18 hrs.
- Difficulty
- Relaxed, forgiving
- Story weight
- Carries the whole game
- Play with
- Solo
- Setting
- Present day
- Visual style
- Retro
- Price bracket
- Budget
- Platforms
- PC, PlayStation
- Critic rating
- 87 / 100
Direct comparison
| Genres | Release year | Playtime | Critic rating | Price bracket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bully | 2006 | approx. 18 hrs. | 87 | Budget |
| Grand Theft Auto: Vice City | 2002 | approx. 20 hrs. | 94 | Budget |
| Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas | 2004 | approx. 45 hrs. | 93 | Budget |
| Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition | 2014 | approx. 16 hrs. | 74 | Budget |
If you liked this, try these
- 94/100 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day, rated higher
- 93/100 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day, longer
- 74/100 Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day
- 88/100 Grand Theft Auto IV Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day, longer
- 88/100 Grand Theft Auto V Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day, longer
- 76/100 Just Cause 3 Shared: Action, Sandbox, Present day