{"id":707949,"date":"2026-07-24T00:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707949\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T00:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:17:13","slug":"im-struggling-to-find-anything-redeemable-bullys-spiritual-ps5-successor-roasted-in-first-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707949\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m Struggling to Find Anything Redeemable’: Bully’s Spiritual PS5 Successor Roasted in First Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'I'm<\/a> Image: Push Square<\/p>\n

If you were hoping the American Pie-inspired sandbox game Agefield High: Rock the School<\/a> would finally provide PS5 with a spiritual successor to Bully, you may want to recalibrate your expectations.<\/p>\n

A new IGN<\/a> preview, which is probably one of the most scathing I\u2019ve ever seen, says the game is \u201cunpolished, uninspired, and flat\u201d. It ultimately doesn\u2019t have any hopes for the title, due out next month on PC, with so little time left until release.<\/p>\n

The complaints raised are broad, but include an out-of-touch script, buggy gameplay, and haunting facial animations \u2013 as we\u2019ve seen in the title\u2019s various trailers to date.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The report describes the game as \u201csauceless\u201d, which is the last thing you want from a title trying to ape the teen comedies of the early 2000s. It also says it doesn\u2019t really capture the era, which is probably the biggest sin here, as it\u2019s trading on nostalgia.<\/p>\n

Dev Refugium Games is based in Germany, so I can maybe see how it failed to capture the feel of an American high school. But surely it needed to bring in writers or consultants, as that\u2019s a major selling point of the game.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare that previews are this negative, because usually writers will account for games being in an unfinished state. But in this case, it seems IGN\u2019s issues are bigger than wonky physics and an inconsistent stealth system.<\/p>\n

The PS5 version is at least due out later than on PC, so there\u2019s a possibility some of the game gets cleaned up prior to its console release. But fixing the script is going to be a taller task than buffing out the bugs. Shame.<\/p>\n

[source youtube.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\tRelated Games<\/p>\n

\tSee Also<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square If you were hoping the American Pie-inspired sandbox game Agefield High: Rock the School would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[234693,59,234692,112,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-agefield-high","tag-gb","tag-perp-games","tag-ps5","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}