While Rockstar Games is known best for the Grand Theft Auto series, Bully - its game about a juvenile delinquent student named James "Jimmy" Hopkins rising through the ranks of Bullworth Academy - is just as highly regarded by some. Many had hoped a sequel would be on its way, and although it has yet to happen, former Rockstar developers have revealed the details of the time they tried to make that dream come true.

Game Informer spoke to five of these former employees from Rockstar's New England studio - the team that was actually working on Bully 2 in the late 2000s - and they shared why this game never... well... graduated and made its way into the world.

Rockstar Vancouver was the team behind the original Bully, but Rockstar New England was entrusted to work on this sequel. They were excited to prove themselves worthy as Rockstar had recently purchased them when they were still known as Mad Doc Software.

While they wanted to be the "golden child in the Rockstar thing," it was hard to escape the shadow of Rockstar North - the main studio behind the Grand Theft Auto games.

“[Rockstar New England] wanted to be sort of the golden child in the Rockstar thing, but it’s really hard when Rockstar North was the one that was producing all the golden eggs at that time,” one developer says. “Living in the shadows of someone who casts a big shadow like Rockstar North, and trying to usurp that role, it’s really difficult and nearly impossible. But man, did they try. Oh, did they try.”

Prior to Rockstar's acquisition of Mad Doc, the studio was approached to work on Bully: Scholarship Edition, which was a remaster of the original with new missions, characters, and items. Following their successful partnership, Rockstar purchased them in April 2008. The team was ecstatic.

“Rockstar itself [...] you say, ‘I work at Rockstar,’ people were really in awe of that,” one former developer says. “It was nice to have some clout to a job. You know? I was excited to work on anything that they had, because most of the games that they’d churned out [had] been pretty golden.”

Unfortunately, the honeymoon period did not last long and the studio's culture quickly changed. Not long after they became Rockstar New England, Rockstar's vice president of development Jeronimo Barrera visited the studio and left some feeling a bit worried.

“One of the first red flags was when someone asked about hours and weekends and stuff like that," the developer recalls. "Jeronimo’s answer was something to the effect of, ‘Well, we don’t work every weekend.’ He's like, ‘For example, I’m not working this Saturday.’ The emphasis on the word ‘every,’ and then ‘this,’ were a little disquieting in their effect.”

In 2019, a report came out from Kotaku and revealed Barrera was described as "abrasive" and "volatile," and one employee accused him of sexual assault. Barrera denied all the allegations.

Following that meeting, the studio was hard at work on finishing the PC version of Bully: Scholarship Edition, assisting with Grand Theft Auto IV's two story expansions and Red Dead Redemption, and beginning work on a sequel to Bully. Despite some of the red flags, they couldn't be more excited.

Bully 2 was positioned to "sit alongside Rockstar games of the time, such as Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption."

“There was a lot of focus on character, very deep systems, seeing how far we could push that, and putting it up there alongside a GTA,” one developer on the project says.

Bully 2 was to be "bigger and deeper than that of the original game," and there were roughly 50-70 people working on the project. While the game's open-world map would not have been as large as GTA IV, its planned scope was to range "from the size of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's open world to 'three times' the size of the original Bully's school map."

To make up for the size, Rockstar New England was planning on making every building in the game enterable, "either by normal means or forced entry." As one developer put it, "if you could see it, you could go into it."

“[The player] was not going to be driving a car anywhere, so the total playable space [and] land size [was] definitely going to be smaller,” another developer says. “Mostly because kids – he’s not going to be driving – and also because we wanted these very deep systems. Like, if you can go into every building, that’s a lot of work. We’d rather not have a really massive world; maybe scale that back a little bit just so that we can make sure that we have all these meaningful things in there.”

Rockstar New England was exceptional in the field of artificial intelligence and wanted to leverage that knowledge to "make the player's actions more meaningful than in previous Rockstar games."

“We really wanted to make sure that people remembered what you did, so if you pulled a prank on your neighbor, they’d remember it,” says one developer. “That your actions had more meaning beyond a 20-foot radius and the five-second memories of the [non-playable characters] near you.”

While Bully 2 was obviously never released, some of its ideas - including this one - made it into other Rockstar games like Red Dead Redemption II.

"Players see changes in protagonist Arthur Morgan’s behavior based on his honor," Game Informer writes. "If Morgan has high honor, he’s a more compassionate character. If Morgan has low honor, he’s driven by greed and apathy. Similarly, if Morgan robs a store, he can’t just walk back into it a few minutes later as if nothing happened. The store clerk remembers Morgan and denies him service, asking him to leave."

“The way that you interact with other characters in the world, more than just with your gun or with your fist, they have some sense of memory – a lot of that stuff [originated in Bully 2],” one developer says.

“From what I remember reading [in] some of the design docs and my conversations with people is that you could build relationships with characters in the world,” he says about Bully 2. “You’d be, like, best friends with the chef in the mansion or whatever, or the chef could really hate you or something, and that would open up different options. I don’t know to the extent of where that ended up – if that got pared down into a general ‘you’re good Jimmy’ versus ‘you’re bad Jimmy’ or what – but I know in some of the early ideas being thrown around, you would have that fine-grained level of relationships to other characters in the world.”

Rockstar New England's new glass fragmentation system was another example of tech making it to future Rockstar games. In this particular case, it would be seen in Max Payne 3.

“If you’ve played Max Payne 3 and you shot some glass, instead of just the glass breaking the same way every time, we had built this whole system so that this chunk right near the impact of the first bullet would break out, and you would see a little spiderweb of glass,” one developer says. “Then if you shot some more of the glass, little individual chunks near where you actually shot would fall out. [It made] it look realistic.”

AI and glass fragmentation weren't the only tech they were excited about working with for Bully 2, as grass growing was another highlight. Yes, you read that right.

"You could go and mow the lawn, and then it would actually be lower,” one former developer says. “You could actually do a good job, go back and forth, and create lines on people’s lawns, that kind of thing.”

“It sounds so silly, but it was something that we were all excited about because [of] the technology behind it,” another developer says of the grass-growing mechanic, in which you could actually see individual blades.

Climbing was also a focus, as it would help expand the world as Jimmy could explore much more of it and just generally cause even more chaos.

“Trees were obviously a big one; we wanted the player to be able to climb up the tree to hide or do some hijinks with all sorts of things like paintball guns or water balloons, all of that sort of stuff,” a former developer says.

All of these ideas could be seen in a vertical slice of Bully 2 that was playable at Rockstar New England. Devs could "run around the world and interact with objects and non-player characters, and there were some missions – such as one involving go-karts, another with a beekeeper, a Kamp Krusty-style mission, and one that had Jimmy in his underwear, even featuring a crotch bulge."

“It was definitely going to be a little risqué,” a former developer says.

“There were a lot of ’80s-kids-on-bikes movies, like Goonies, that came up as reference. Porky’s was another commonly used movie for reference,” he says. “We [looked] at a lot of those kinds of things. It’s definitely in that style.”

“The game was at least six to eight hours playable,” says Marc Anthony Rodriguez, a former game analyst for Rockstar’s New York City headquarters and one of the project leads on Bully: Scholarship Edition. “So, fully rendered, fully realized.”

At that point, Bully 2 was still a few years away. Unfortunately, Rockstar would begin to pull people off the project to help other in-development games that were in need of assistance, like Max Payne 3, and "once anyone got pulled off of Bully 2, they never returned."

Also at this time, the developers recalled months-long crunch that would have certain members of the staff working 12- and 16-hour days and working weekends. One former developer used the word "endless" to describe the crunch at the studio.

“I mean, it was just ridiculous,” one former developer says, describing the development of Red Dead Redemption. “I know that it won game of the year, and that was great and satisfying, but the approach to development was just – it was ridiculous. It took no one’s life outside of work into account.”

That crunch was one factor in the change of the studio's culture, which was a far cry from what it was like during the days as Mac Doc Software.

“The culture just – it just changed,” another former developer says. “I saw people that previously I really liked become just sycophantic. And then there was the whole ‘bodies in chairs’ thing, you know? You don’t have work to do, but you’re going to be here on the weekend, because there’s some studio head that’s going to be walking around. This doesn’t even get into the off-work hours stuff where it was just – it was like a hardworking frat house. There is an age and a person that is really drawn to that. Rockstar, in my opinion, is well aware of this.”

All of these factors and more have led to the fact that we still don't have Bully 2 in our lives, but the true fate of the game still very much remains up in the air.

Over the years, there have been rumors and reports of Bully 2, like in 2009 when Bully's composer Shawn Lee said, "it looks like I will be doing the soundtrack for Bully 2 in the not so distant future."

In 2011, Dan Houser told Gamasutra that Rockstar may work on the sequel after Max Payne 3, which was released in 2012.

In 2017, the Twitter account Bully 2 Info posted some supposed concept art and in-game screenshots, and Game Informer's contacts confirmed that a lot of what was leaked was legitimate.

In 2019, YouTuber SWEGTA uploaded a video with a former Rockstar New England employee who spoke about Bully 2 and "Rockstar's decision to shelve the project in 2009."

Also in 2019, VGC published a report that said Bully 2 was in development at Rockstar New England for "between 12 and 18 months before fizzling out" and that the development of the project took place between 2010-2013. This all "roughly lines up" with what Game Informer heard, but the developers they spoke to said they remember it being worked on between 2008-2010.

Game Informer was unable to confirm if Rockstar New England or another Rockstar studio is currently working on Bully 2, but one developer did share that "a build of the game still existed at Rockstar New England as recently as a few years ago, parts of which were used as reference material for later projects.

While it remains to be seen if we will ever play Bully 2, it's clear its influence has been seen in other Rockstar projects. Even still, these former developers still look back fondly on what could have been.

“It was going to be really cool,” one former developer says. “What we had was pretty amazing, especially given the very short amount of time that we were working on it. [...] It certainly would’ve been very unique, very interesting, certainly a lot of fun. A lot of cool and interesting mechanics that we were working on that still aren’t in other games.”

“It’s still a concept, in my opinion, worth exploring," another says, "and I think that it would be a missed opportunity for them to let it go forever."

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has revealed why he has yet to play Bluepoint's remake of Demon's Souls and how the team at FromSoftware was so impressed by the game's visuals that they felt extra pressure when developing Elden Ring for PS5.

As reported by VGC, Miyazaki was interviewed by Edge magazine and shared that the Demon's Souls remake's focus on graphical fidelity was not something FromSoftware puts as a top priority on, and that's why his team - specifically the graphics creation staff - felt this extra pressure after the remake was released. However, that doesn't mean they aren't up for the challenge and Miyzaki has all the faith in the world in his team.

"And not just with Elden Ring, but with all the games we make," Miyazaki said. "Graphical fidelity is not something we put as the top priority. What we ask for on the graphics side depends on the systems and requirements of the game itself, and it takes less priority compared to the other elements of development.

“So this is always an area where I feel a little bit apologetic towards my graphics team because I know they work extremely hard. And they’ve worked extremely hard on Elden Ring – our graphics-systems team and our programmers have been pushing a lot of new features to create the best-looking games we’ve ever made.”

He then explained why he has yet to play the Demon's Souls remake, despite the original being another game he was the director of. What it boils down to, according to Miyazaki, is that he is not a fan of replaying his old work.

"As you say, I was not directly involved in it, and I haven’t actually played the Demon’s remake," Miyazaki said. "But this is because I just don’t enjoy playing the games that I’ve made in the past,” he explained. “It brings up a lot of old emotions, a lot of old memories, and this gets a little bit overwhelming, and it doesn’t feel like playing any more. So I have not played the Demon’s remake, but I am very glad to see it get this fresh look, these brand-new current-gen graphics."

He concluded by saying that while he's happy to see the game modernized for both a new and old audience, he was a bit nervous as Demon's Souls development was not the smoothest one.

“It was an old game, so to see it get remade in this way and have new players playing it was obviously something that made me very happy," Miyzaki said. “It was a rough game back in the day, with a relatively rough development, so I was anxious that new players would not enjoy it in that same way. That was a cause of concern for me when it was re-released but, you know, in the end, I’m just happy to see the reaction and happy to see people enjoying it.

“One thing that was really fun was seeing [Bluepoint Games] come up with things we didn’t consider and to approach certain elements of the game its visuals and its mechanics in a way that we either couldn’t or didn’t back in the day. So to see them researching and applying these new thought processes and new techniques, this was something that was really exciting and interesting for me.”

Fans won't have long to wait to see how the team rose to the challenge of making Elden Ring FromSoftware's best-looking game yet as it is set to arrive on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on February 24, 2022.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki has revealed why he has yet to play Bluepoint's remake of Demon's Souls and how the team at FromSoftware was so impressed by the game's visuals that they felt extra pressure when developing Elden Ring for PS5.

As reported by VGC, Miyazaki was interviewed by Edge magazine and shared that the Demon's Souls remake's focus on graphical fidelity was not something FromSoftware puts as a top priority on, and that's why his team - specifically the graphics creation staff - felt this extra pressure after the remake was released. However, that doesn't mean they aren't up for the challenge and Miyzaki has all the faith in the world in his team.

"And not just with Elden Ring, but with all the games we make," Miyazaki said. "Graphical fidelity is not something we put as the top priority. What we ask for on the graphics side depends on the systems and requirements of the game itself, and it takes less priority compared to the other elements of development.

“So this is always an area where I feel a little bit apologetic towards my graphics team because I know they work extremely hard. And they’ve worked extremely hard on Elden Ring – our graphics-systems team and our programmers have been pushing a lot of new features to create the best-looking games we’ve ever made.”

He then explained why he has yet to play the Demon's Souls remake, despite the original being another game he was the director of. What it boils down to, according to Miyazaki, is that he is not a fan of replaying his old work.

"As you say, I was not directly involved in it, and I haven’t actually played the Demon’s remake," Miyazaki said. "But this is because I just don’t enjoy playing the games that I’ve made in the past,” he explained. “It brings up a lot of old emotions, a lot of old memories, and this gets a little bit overwhelming, and it doesn’t feel like playing any more. So I have not played the Demon’s remake, but I am very glad to see it get this fresh look, these brand-new current-gen graphics."

He concluded by saying that while he's happy to see the game modernized for both a new and old audience, he was a bit nervous as Demon's Souls development was not the smoothest one.

“It was an old game, so to see it get remade in this way and have new players playing it was obviously something that made me very happy," Miyzaki said. “It was a rough game back in the day, with a relatively rough development, so I was anxious that new players would not enjoy it in that same way. That was a cause of concern for me when it was re-released but, you know, in the end, I’m just happy to see the reaction and happy to see people enjoying it.

“One thing that was really fun was seeing [Bluepoint Games] come up with things we didn’t consider and to approach certain elements of the game its visuals and its mechanics in a way that we either couldn’t or didn’t back in the day. So to see them researching and applying these new thought processes and new techniques, this was something that was really exciting and interesting for me.”

Fans won't have long to wait to see how the team rose to the challenge of making Elden Ring FromSoftware's best-looking game yet as it is set to arrive on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on February 24, 2022.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Before the Harry Potter franchise became the global phenomenon it is today, Electronic Arts was in the process of making a MMO based on its world. However, it appears it was cancelled in the early 2000s because the company didn't believe "that the IP would have a shelf life longer than a year or two."

As reported by Polygon, EA's former director of product marketing Kim Salzer discussed this Harry Potter MMO that was in development between 2000 and 2003 (before the release of the series' sixth book - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released!) on a Twitch stream that her current firm - Orignal Gamer Life - hosted.

Imagine a Harry Potter MMO...

It almost happened but #EA cancelled it. They did the research and even a beta version of the game, but didn't think Harry Potter was going to be around more than a few years.#harrypotter #hogwarts #voldemort #mmo #metaverse #multiverse pic.twitter.com/bt5u6YQ2oe

— OGL: Original Gamer Life (@OGLifeOGL) December 22, 2021

“Sometimes, I just don’t know where to start,” said Salzer, when she was asked about which cancelled game she was most upset about during her time in the games industry. “But a big one for me, because I was so personally involved in it and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on, is a online massively multiplayer game for Harry Potter.”

Before it was Expelliarmus-ed (you're welcome), the team behind it had a working beta and had done all the necessary research. EA was even in the process of working on systems to mail out prizes and ribbons to players in what Salzer called a "combination offline/online experience."

While she didn't go into too much detail, she did confirm that it was ultimately cancelled before making it to the finish line, in part due to the uncertainty surrounding the lasting power of the Harry Potter IP.

"EA was going through some changes at that time,” said Salzer, “and they just didn’t know, or believe enough, that that IP would have a shelf life longer than a year or two.”

Salzar left EA around the time of the first two Harry Potter films, and while EA would go on to publish more than 10 titles based on its magical world, the MMO never saw the light of day.

In 2022, Warner Bros. now is in charge of the Wizarding World franchise - which includes Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - and that includes the video game rights through its Portkey Games label.

While there may not be an MMO in the future, Harry Potter fans do have Hogwarts Legacy to look forward to in 2022.

Announced at September 2020's PS5 event, Hogwarts Legacy is set before the events of the Harry Potter books and takes place in the late 1800s, where your custom character becomes the star of its story.

It was originally set to be released in 2021, but WB Games delayed the game to 2022 to give "the game the time it needs."

Hogwarts Legacy is also surrounded by controversy due to Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's transphobic comments on Twitter and beyond.

Following these comments, WB Games confirmed that J.K. Rowling is "not directly involved" with the upcoming RPG, and a report has even said that the RPG will allow for transgender characters.

For more, check out our look at how Harry Potter fans are coping with J.K. Rowling.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Before the Harry Potter franchise became the global phenomenon it is today, Electronic Arts was in the process of making a MMO based on its world. However, it appears it was cancelled in the early 2000s because the company didn't believe "that the IP would have a shelf life longer than a year or two."

As reported by Polygon, EA's former director of product marketing Kim Salzer discussed this Harry Potter MMO that was in development between 2000 and 2003 (before the release of the series' sixth book - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released!) on a Twitch stream that her current firm - Orignal Gamer Life - hosted.

Imagine a Harry Potter MMO...

It almost happened but #EA cancelled it. They did the research and even a beta version of the game, but didn't think Harry Potter was going to be around more than a few years.#harrypotter #hogwarts #voldemort #mmo #metaverse #multiverse pic.twitter.com/bt5u6YQ2oe

— OGL: Original Gamer Life (@OGLifeOGL) December 22, 2021

“Sometimes, I just don’t know where to start,” said Salzer, when she was asked about which cancelled game she was most upset about during her time in the games industry. “But a big one for me, because I was so personally involved in it and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on, is a online massively multiplayer game for Harry Potter.”

Before it was Expelliarmus-ed (you're welcome), the team behind it had a working beta and had done all the necessary research. EA was even in the process of working on systems to mail out prizes and ribbons to players in what Salzer called a "combination offline/online experience."

While she didn't go into too much detail, she did confirm that it was ultimately cancelled before making it to the finish line, in part due to the uncertainty surrounding the lasting power of the Harry Potter IP.

"EA was going through some changes at that time,” said Salzer, “and they just didn’t know, or believe enough, that that IP would have a shelf life longer than a year or two.”

Salzar left EA around the time of the first two Harry Potter films, and while EA would go on to publish more than 10 titles based on its magical world, the MMO never saw the light of day.

In 2022, Warner Bros. now is in charge of the Wizarding World franchise - which includes Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - and that includes the video game rights through its Portkey Games label.

While there may not be an MMO in the future, Harry Potter fans do have Hogwarts Legacy to look forward to in 2022.

Announced at September 2020's PS5 event, Hogwarts Legacy is set before the events of the Harry Potter books and takes place in the late 1800s, where your custom character becomes the star of its story.

It was originally set to be released in 2021, but WB Games delayed the game to 2022 to give "the game the time it needs."

Hogwarts Legacy is also surrounded by controversy due to Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's transphobic comments on Twitter and beyond.

Following these comments, WB Games confirmed that J.K. Rowling is "not directly involved" with the upcoming RPG, and a report has even said that the RPG will allow for transgender characters.

For more, check out our look at how Harry Potter fans are coping with J.K. Rowling.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

As we begin the start of a brand new year lasting 365 days, imagine living on a planet where the entire year lasts just 16 hours. That's the case on the exoplanet TOI-2109b, which astronomers say is destined to keep getting closer and closer to its star, until the planet disappears.

Reported by Space.com, astronomers say this is now the shortest known orbit of a planet, and it's getting faster. TOI-2109b is an exoplanet, which is comparable in size to Jupiter. Scientists call them "hot Jupiters" because they are built like Jupiter but orbit closer to their star. This planet is just 1.5 million miles from its star, while Mercury, the closest planet to our sun, pales in comparison at 36 million miles.

TESS scans for dips in darkness, which signify planets blocking their stars, representing orbit. In this case, the dips in darkness came every 16 hours, which clued astronomers into the record-setting orbit.

This exoplanet is five times as massive and one-third larger than our Jupiter, though, and the star it orbits is twice as large as our sun. It's also the second-hottest known exoplanet, with a temperature of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

And, its 16 hour-long year is accelerating. Scientists say the planet is getting closer to its star at a rate between 10 and 750 milliseconds per year. This still puts the planet's demise at an estimated 10 million years away. Astronomers plan to check in with the planet in the spring of next year to try and learn more about its eventual demise.

The planet is 855 lightyears away from Earth, in the Hercules constellation. It was discovered thanks to NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which has been orbiting Earth since April 2018.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

As we begin the start of a brand new year lasting 365 days, imagine living on a planet where the entire year lasts just 16 hours. That's the case on the exoplanet TOI-2109b, which astronomers say is destined to keep getting closer and closer to its star, until the planet disappears.

Reported by Space.com, astronomers say this is now the shortest known orbit of a planet, and it's getting faster. TOI-2109b is an exoplanet, which is comparable in size to Jupiter. Scientists call them "hot Jupiters" because they are built like Jupiter but orbit closer to their star. This planet is just 1.5 million miles from its star, while Mercury, the closest planet to our sun, pales in comparison at 36 million miles.

TESS scans for dips in darkness, which signify planets blocking their stars, representing orbit. In this case, the dips in darkness came every 16 hours, which clued astronomers into the record-setting orbit.

This exoplanet is five times as massive and one-third larger than our Jupiter, though, and the star it orbits is twice as large as our sun. It's also the second-hottest known exoplanet, with a temperature of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

And, its 16 hour-long year is accelerating. Scientists say the planet is getting closer to its star at a rate between 10 and 750 milliseconds per year. This still puts the planet's demise at an estimated 10 million years away. Astronomers plan to check in with the planet in the spring of next year to try and learn more about its eventual demise.

The planet is 855 lightyears away from Earth, in the Hercules constellation. It was discovered thanks to NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which has been orbiting Earth since April 2018.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale creator Greg Lobanov has teased that he and his team are officially working on a new game with a GIF of an adorable, hopping two-legged fox creature that I'd like to be my new best friend.

Lobanov shared the news on Twitter just one minute before 2021 became 2022, saying this announcement was a long time coming.

been waiting a long time to let everyone know:

I'm working on something new with the chicory team :)

I can't wait to talk more about it!!!!! hope to share details in 2022 pic.twitter.com/jcWFXetjvs

— Greg Lobanov (@GregLobanov) January 1, 2022

"Been waiting a long time to let everyone know: I'm working on something new with the chicory team =)," Lobanov wrote. "I can't wait to talk more about it!!!!! hope to share details in 2022."

The accompanying GIF of the aforementioned fox creature - which may or may not be part of the new game - is also featured on a job page for a Creature Concept Artist for this new project.

The job description itself gives a few more teases as to what this game may be, as this role is meant for someone that has, among other things, 'designs with lots of character/personality" and "interest in & inspiration from real world animals/biology."

For those who have played Chicory: A Colorful Tale - the game we awarded as our Best Puzzle Game of 2021 - these words will sound familiar. Chicory was a beautiful and charming game that features a cast of wonderful, anthropomorphic animals, and this new project very well may be a sequel or a new game in the style and feel of it.

In our Chicory review, we said that "it is a pristine little adventure with fun puzzles, a surprisingly rich paint mechanic, and a story that's disarmingly real, difficult, and heartfelt."

If you have yet to try Chicory, it is currently available on PS5, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale creator Greg Lobanov has teased that he and his team are officially working on a new game with a GIF of an adorable, hopping two-legged fox creature that I'd like to be my new best friend.

Lobanov shared the news on Twitter just one minute before 2021 became 2022, saying this announcement was a long time coming.

been waiting a long time to let everyone know:

I'm working on something new with the chicory team :)

I can't wait to talk more about it!!!!! hope to share details in 2022 pic.twitter.com/jcWFXetjvs

— Greg Lobanov (@GregLobanov) January 1, 2022

"Been waiting a long time to let everyone know: I'm working on something new with the chicory team =)," Lobanov wrote. "I can't wait to talk more about it!!!!! hope to share details in 2022."

The accompanying GIF of the aforementioned fox creature - which may or may not be part of the new game - is also featured on a job page for a Creature Concept Artist for this new project.

The job description itself gives a few more teases as to what this game may be, as this role is meant for someone that has, among other things, 'designs with lots of character/personality" and "interest in & inspiration from real world animals/biology."

For those who have played Chicory: A Colorful Tale - the game we awarded as our Best Puzzle Game of 2021 - these words will sound familiar. Chicory was a beautiful and charming game that features a cast of wonderful, anthropomorphic animals, and this new project very well may be a sequel or a new game in the style and feel of it.

In our Chicory review, we said that "it is a pristine little adventure with fun puzzles, a surprisingly rich paint mechanic, and a story that's disarmingly real, difficult, and heartfelt."

If you have yet to try Chicory, it is currently available on PS5, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

GoldenEye 007, the legendary N64 game from Rare that is one of the most beloved multiplayer experiences for many around the world, may be getting a new life on Xbox after Achievements have been spotted for the game online.

TrueAchievements, a website that tracks Xbox Achievement activity, recently picked up an Achievement list for Goldeneye 007 which had never been seen before. There are 55 Achievements that are worth a total of 1,000 Gamerscore, and that is another hint this may be a new port.

As many may remember, there was an updated version of GoldenEye 007 being developed for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade that was just about finished before it was canceled due to licensing issues. Back then, XBLA games had a limit of 200 Gamerscore, so seeing GoldenEye 007 with 1,000 Gamerscore is an interesting development.

Furthermore, TrueAchievements' website also reveals that there are only two Xbox accounts that have earned any of these achievements - BIGsheep and xtinamcgrath. By searching for these names, it appears that BIGsheep and xtinamcgrath are Rare employees James Thomas and Christina McGrath.

While this doesn't necessarily mean that a new port of GoldenEye 007 on Xbox consoles is imminent, it is an exciting prospect for fans as we begin the new year.

In February 2021, the game files for Rare's cancelled GoldenEye 007 remaster were shared on the internet, just a month after a full playthrough of the game's campaign was released on YouTube. The demo showed that you could swap between old and new visuals like the Halo remasters and that it could run at 60FPS and can be played in 4K.

While we wait to learn more about this possible port of GoldenEye 007, check out the officially announced Project 007 - a new James Bond game coming from Hitman developer IO Interactive.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.