Rockstar Co-Founder Says Bully and Red Dead Redemption Nearly Got Canceled During Difficult Development

There were many moments when the projects could have been shut down.

Many players love Bully, sometimes called the “school GTA,” and Red Dead Redemption. According to Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser, both games faced difficulties during development and were at risk of cancellation. He shared his recollections in a recent interview with IGN.

Houser explained that it is harder to get original games to release than to make a sequel:

I think there were a lot of moments when Red Dead almost got canceled. The same was true of Bully, and there were many moments when various other games could have come out but never did. There are a lot of cases where things come together by coincidence, one good build shows up, or the game suddenly becomes cohesive, and that saves projects that are in a tough spot. In my experience, development is especially hard when you are working on a new intellectual property […]

In the case of Red Dead Redemption, Houser explains, the development team focused on finding and solving problems. The team tried to work out what could be interesting in an open-world game about cowboys:

Together we figured out what the problems were and looked for solutions, gradually working out what could be interesting in an open-world game about cowboys. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but while we were working, all we had were “holes” that we had to fill in bit by bit.

Bully and Red Dead Redemption nearly got canceled, a Rockstar co-founder says, describing difficult game development — Image source: Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games is now preparing the release of Grand Theft Auto VI. The game is planned for November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

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