Bully Online, the ambitious mod that brought multiplayer and more to Rockstar's classic school sim, shuts down a month after launch: 'This was not something we wanted'

Bully Online mod screenshot - three kids fighting — (Image credit: Swegta)

We expressed concerns about Bully Online, a massively ambitious mod that promised to bring multiplayer and a host of new systems to Rockstar's classic school sim, when we ran across it in November 2025. It looked great, but the initial release was limited to people willing to pay for it through the mod team's Ko-Fi page, and that seemed like the sort of thing almost guaranteed to attract unwelcome attention from Rockstar's lawyers. Sure enough, just a month after the mod launched, it's gone.

"The Bully Online project is shutting down. Thank you all for playing," a message posted on the website of YouTube and project lead Swegta (via Insider Gaming) now states. The Bully Online page on Swegta's website is already gone, as is the Mod DB page, although it can still be seen through the Internet Archive.

A more detailed message about the closure was posted today on Swegta's Discord server. "The Bully Online project is shutting down forever, which unfortunately means all the following is going to happen in 24 hours: our official Bully Online server (on swegta.com) will be shutdown, development of scripts for Bully Online will stop, the source code will be removed from swegta.com, all our webpages referring to it will be removed, the launcher downloads will taken down, and all Bully Online account data will be permanently deleted."

BULLY Online HAS BEEN RELEASED!! - YouTube

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That said, I reckon we can figure out the broad strokes: The complete annihilation of the Bully Online mod, including removal of the source code and an all-but-explicit statement saying the team was forced into it, absolutely screams cease-and-desist letter, very likely of the heavy-handed sort. Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive had a reputation for that sort of thing back in the day, at one point reportedly sending private investigators around to modders' homes to, uh, talk to them about it.

Which isn't to say they have anything against mods in particular—in fact they seem quite enthusiastic about them, under the right circumstances. Rockstar bought the makers of the major FiveM and RedM mods in 2023, and have now launched its very own official mods shop.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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