A remastered version of the game, subtitled Scholarship Edition, was developed by Mad Doc Software and released on 4 March 2008 for Xbox 360 and Wii, and on 21 October 2008 for Windows.

The game is played from a third-person perspective and its open world can be navigated on foot, skateboard, motor scooter, bicycle, or go-kart.

The Scholarship Edition includes a two-player competitive multiplayer mode that lets two players compete for the highest score in different classes.

Throughout the story, Jimmy progresses through 6 chapters and through the ranks of the school groups, archetypes include Bullies, Nerds, Preppies, Greasers, Jocks and Townies.

Should the player take damage, their health meter can be fully replenished using multiple methods, such as drinking sodas, which can be obtained from vending machines or dropped by enemies, and kissing certain NPCs after interacting with them.

If the player breaks rules while playing, the game's authority figures (prefects, policemen and orderlies) may respond as indicated by a "trouble" meter in the head-up display (HUD).

If the player is busted, they respawn at the nearest police station or the school principal's office and all their weapons (excluding the slingshot, skateboard, and camera) are confiscated.

However, an increasingly paranoid Gary eventually betrays Jimmy and pits him against Russell Northrop (Cody Melton), the Bullies' leader, in an underground fight.

Turning his attention to the Greasers, Jimmy agrees to help their leader, Johnny Vincent (Rocco Rosanio), expose an affair between his girlfriend Lola Lombardi (Phoebe Strole) and Preppy member Gord Vendome (Drew Gehling).

When they refuse to help, Jimmy defeats their leader, Earnest Jones (Jesse Tendler), and earns his and the Nerds' respect by guaranteeing they will never be picked on again.

To ruin the Jocks' reputation, Earnest has Jimmy take inappropriate pictures of the school's head cheerleader, Mandy Wiles (Elena Franklin), which are then spread across town.

Eventually, the Jocks are humiliated after Jimmy sabotages their big football game and subsequently defeats their leader Ted Thompson (Alexander Cendese) in a fight in front of the entire school.

Having united all the cliques under his rule and restored peace to Bullworth, Jimmy basks in his newfound glory and respect, unaware that Gary is plotting to overthrow him.

He also recruits the "Townies," a group of former Bullworth students who seek revenge against the school, to play a series of dangerous pranks on the cliques so that they would blame Jimmy's poor leadership and turn on him.

To convince the Townies to turn on him, Jimmy seeks the assistance of one of their members, Zoe Taylor (Molly Fox), who was expelled from Bullworth after accusing the school's predatory sports teacher and team coach, Mr. Burton (Michael Boyle), of sexual harassment.

Once freed, Crabblesnitch expels Gary, fires Burton for predatory acts, appoints Petey as head boy, and reconciles with Jimmy by allowing him and Zoe to return to Bullworth.

[2] Early information released by Take-Two Interactive seemed to indicate that the player would be taking the role of a bully, and screenshots printed in Electronic Gaming Monthly showed the player-controlled antagonist administering a "swirlie" and throwing a punch at another student.

[6] Though the pompous school principal Dr. Crabblesnitch is originally introduced as the main antagonist,[7] this role was later given to Gary Smith, a student who initially befriends Jimmy.

[12] The game features additional content which is not in the original version, including missions, characters, school classes, and unlockable items and clothing.

The Xbox 360 version of Bully: Scholarship Edition was found to be unstable on some players' consoles, resulting in glitches, crashes, and performance issues.

[47] Bully's title and gameplay was the subject of controversy among parents and educators who noted the adult content in previous Rockstar games, including the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee minigame.

[66] Prior to both the ESRB's rating and the release of Bully, Jack Thompson filed a lawsuit attempting to have the game banned from store shelves in Florida.

[67] Thompson's petition, filed with the 11th Judicial Circuit Court, asked for Wal-Mart and Take-Two Interactive to furnish him with an advance copy of Bully so he could have "an independent third party" play the game and determine if it would constitute a public nuisance in the state of Florida, in which case it could be banned.

Press coverage described the game as free-form, focusing on building a social network and learning new skills from classes, with strictly enforced punishments for serious misbehaviour.

[72] In November 2006, Michael Pachter, managing director of research for Wedbush Morgan Securities, predicted that Bully would not sell well enough over the upcoming holidays to warrant a sequel.

[76][77] In November 2011, in an interview with Gamasutra, Rockstar executive Dan Houser revealed that the studio might focus on a sequel for Bully after the release of Max Payne 3.

"So we knew that we didn't want to start doing the Bully sequel instantly at that second with Rockstar Vancouver even though it is a property that, like Max Payne, we adore and might come back to in the future.

He claimed to have worked on various game mechanics in the scrapped project and stated that the story would have featured Jimmy living with his mother and step-siblings in his stepfather's mansion during summer vacation.

[83] In October 2019, Video Games Chronicle published a story based on inside sources corroborating that Rockstar had indeed worked on Bully 2 for eighteen months before cancelling it.

Production of the game however began in May 2010, shortly after Red Dead Redemption was released, and eventually was discontinued sometime before the end of 2013 as the project did not get much traction in the studio.