Rockstar’s The Warriors is one of the oddest games that the GTA developer ever released, though it’s quite enjoyable in its own right. According to a recent report from retro gaming site Time Extension, Rockstar came extremely close to releasing a GBA port of the game around 2005, but it was ultimately canned.
The Time Extension piece attributes the information to an anonymous former Rockstar Games employee. That employee says that the game was essentially finished when it was canceled in 2005, and that it used tech from Rockstar Leeds’ GBA port of Max Payne, including the game engine. The piece also states that there’s at least one copy of the game out there, but it hasn’t yet seen a release due to potential legal concerns.
According to the source, the GBA Warriors had four-player co-op through the console’s link cable, and it was “fun to play.” However, it never saw the light of day because the PSP was gaining momentum, and Rockstar was decidedly on the Sony side of the platform war. The employee also cites Nintendo’s apparent dislike for promoting M-rated games as a factor in the decision. Rockstar developed a number of original GTA games for the PSP, including Liberty City Stories, but also developed Chinatown Wars for the DS.
Later in the piece, the source says that Rockstar Leeds was set to work on a Nintendo DS port of Rockstar’s classic PS2 game Bully before it was canceled due to similar reasons. However, Time Extension notes that it was not able to fully confirm this latter claim. A few years ago, we learned about Rockstar’s shelved plans for Bully 2, which would’ve featured a map three times larger than the original game.
