Bullworth is a false myth spread around the Grand Theft Auto community after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
Timeline[]
Stock Footage Easter Egg[]
The rumor began in 2008 with the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which introduced TV shows available for the player to watch in their safehouses. All of the TV shows are pre-rendered .bik video files played as a video layer on the TV model in-game. One of the TV shows, "I'm Rich", uses various stock footage of locations and characters from other Rockstar titles including Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption, and the 3D Universe GTA games.
Similar to how the Los Santos International Airport runway is used to represent a NASCAR-style race course (named the "Patriot 500" Speedway) in a commercial shortly before the TV show starts, a segment of the promotional trailer for Bully: Scholarship Edition is used in the TV show, representing an unnamed and unidentified school.
"Bully Trivia" Vandalism[]
In 2009, an unregistered user edited the "Bully Trivia" article on the Bully Wiki on Fandom. The unnamed user added the information that "townspeople in New Coventry can be heard talking about someone named Starkweather", referring to Lionel Starkweather from Manhunt, a survival game by Rockstar North which shares its universe with the 3D Universe GTA titles. This supposed "easter egg" was not verified until decades later.
One year later, a registered user "Spaceghost212" included another piece of information on "Bully Trivia", claiming that advertisements for the ZIP clothing brand from the GTA series can be seen in the Old Bullworth Vale area in Bully, which is obviously false information. However, both informations were kept untouched in the Bully Wiki, likely not noticed by the staff members at that time, and was taken as a fact by the community.
This led people to speculate whether Bully and GTA shared universes for nearly two decades, despite:
- There was never any direct mention to Bully characters or in-game big companies and corporations from Bully appearing in GTA, except for a single stock footage.
- Bully/Canis Canem Edit is not written or developed by Rockstar North, the British game developers behind GTA and Manhunt. They are simply published by the same American parent company.
- It was never officially confirmed by Rockstar Games or the Bully developers at the defunct Rockstar Vancouver, unlike the GTA 3D Universe-Manhunt connection through official lore and promotional material.
Debunked[]
The false rumor about the supposed Starkweather quote was verified in 2023 in a brief collaboration between wikis and Bully's Reddit community, by datamining Bully and listening to every pedestrian dialogue from pedestrians in New Coventry - none of the audio files quoted any GTA/Manhunt city, character or event.
A showcase of Bully pedestrian quotes are currently available from various YouTube videos.
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