Rifle Finally Unlocked In Bully 20 Years Later Thanks To Wild Glitch

"Over the past six months, one man has essentially dedicated his life to attempting to beat Rockstar Games' 2006 open-world classic without hurting a single NPC. Ironically, his pacifist quest has resulted in him discovering several never-before-seen exploits that allow you to use some of the game's most violent weapons outside of specific missions, including the sledgehammer, the explosive football, and, as of yesterday, a rifle."

"JustGarrison uploaded their discovery to YouTube last night, which includes the specific steps required to bring the rifle into free roam. Just to clarify, while this is an exploit, as Rockstar Games obviously didn't intend for players to be able to use the rifle to shoot people, JustGarrison didn't use any kind of mods or outside tools to pull this off and states in his video that the weapon can be accessed in any version of ."

"As the rifle in question can normally only be temporarily used by accessing the shooting range minigame, you might be surprised to learn that it does actually deal damage to NPCs. This does imply that the rifle was intentionally programmed this way, and a way to access it in free roam was possibly cut from the game at some point in development. However, if that is the case, the buggy animations and the fact that you can fire it during cutscenes suggest that it was either unfinished or that Rockstar Games removed its third-person assets from the game before launch."

"Even though, as implied in the shooting range minigame, the rifle only fires BB pellets, I understand why Rockstar Games potentially chose to remove access to the weapon outside the minigame, as the optics of shooting inside a school would almost definitely have resulted in scrutiny from the media. After all, since Bully was released in 2006, it dropped roughly a year after the "Hot Coffee" minigame was discovered in the PC release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

A pacifist run of a 2006 open-world game led to discoveries of new exploits that allow violent weapons to be used outside intended areas. The rifle, normally accessible only through the shooting range minigame, can be brought into free roam using specific steps. The rifle can damage NPCs even though it is described as firing BB pellets, suggesting intentional programming or removed access during development. Buggy animations and the ability to fire during cutscenes indicate unfinished assets or removed third-person weapon models before launch. Media scrutiny concerns are raised due to prior controversy around similar content in related Rockstar titles.

Read at Kotaku