As Rockstar Games, understandably, moved on from a variety of IP to become a developer focused on its two marquee franchises, GTA and Red Dead, hopes for a sequel to Bully have steadily faded to dust. Wearing its inspiration proudly on its sleeve, Agefield High: Rock the School seeks to fill that rebellious, juvenile and delinquent void.
Set in the early 00s, Rock the School is heavily inspired by raunchy teen films and TV of the era. Shamelessly drawing from the likes of American Pie and other films of the same ilk, so much so that the street the lead protagonist lives on is Levenstein – surname of American Pie lead, Jim – Road.
I love that moment in pop culture. The music, the clothing, even the likes of WWE were edgy, unfiltered and all at a time where it was difficult to trigger others. Growing up in that era, two of my top 5 films of all time to this day are American Pie 1 and 2. So, I couldn’t wait to see how Refugium Games built a Bully-like using humour that most mainstream media won’t touch these days. Horny and perverted teachers, drunken house parties and trying to steal the jock’s girl to become Prom King, it’s all here. Applying all this to a Rockstar-like title, on paper was a match made in band camp for me.
Unfortunately, Agefield High is a strong contender for the worst release of 2026. In fact, it is one of the worst video games I have ever played, period. You should never part with your hard-earned money to play this game, and I have many reasons to tell you why. I normally avoid spoilers in my reviews, however you will find some below as I simply plead for you to never Rock the School. Our review.
Not for Teacher
Arriving to the town of Agefield with his mom and deadbeat sister, lead Sam joins the local high school with only one term till graduation. Enrolling in Agefield High he quickly befriends fellow ‘inbetweeners’ Kale and Axel, who are working on their ‘Rock the School’ plan to screw the jocks, get the babes and shred some guitars so they graduate as legends. Like most teen comedies of the 00s setting, all roads lead to prom. Tried, tested and reliable teen plot, right?
Rock the School rapidly falls apart with its shameful characters. Sam is a woefully boring and flat lead with no personality whatsoever. Apart from being a new high school student who is desperate to get laid, I can’t tell you anything about him. No backstory, no traits for his friends to poke fun at and a drab voice that rarely changes tone regardless of the situation. Sam’s (and everyone else’s) facial expressions are soulless, rarely does he crack more than a false-looking smile. Their eyes look straight through anything much like those universally panned in Mass Effect Andromeda. As a new kid joining a new school, I wanted to root for him to get the girl and kick some ass, instead I yearned for every cutscene to finish.
A title based on teen comedies, I wasn’t expecting an accomplished narrative. Sadly, the game’s writing is all over the place. For example, it wasn’t until around an hour into playing the game that I discovered Sam has a sister via a quest, Lisa – she lives in the same house!
Even with quite a large supporting cast, the residents of Agefield all fail to lift the script. The main girl Sam chases through the game is equally lifeless Chloe, these two are made for each other and I’m sure they’ll enjoy a future staring at walls together. Horny pals Kale and Axel accompany Sam throughout including trying to bed their porn star, come high school teacher who, in an underwhelming turn of events, just sends you to throw her adult magazines in the lake.
There’s also Gran Torino-like, ‘Mr Clint’ (Mr Eastwood may wish to contact his lawyers) who acts as an old man guardian angel to Sam. His ‘quest’ (loose term) is just cutting his grass using a fiddly lawnmower. Regardless who, there are no characters or engagements that even slightly levitate the story.
Within about 30-minutes of playing Agefield I knew the game was rough, but had hoped the humour would provide some salvation. It does not. There are some slightly humorous moments with Lisa as she seeks to snare the richest men in Agefield including the charismatic Mayor. Meanwhile, as you travel around the lush green town you’ll ride past the plain NPCs who occasionally mutter a small number of funny quips including one about their daughter being pregnant. Funny the first time, not the twentieth.
Recess Required
Agefield divides its main game between 32 missions that are repetitive, basic, and nearly all a complete bore with variety that struggles to entertain past mission 5. Each involves arriving to speak with a quest provider, before heading off to do little more than the following: beat up the same few jocks (you’ll beat the same guys up on repeat and the fighting mechanics are awful); creep around and grab something; or commit a juvenile crime before being chased away by school security or the police. Mechanically the missions feel somewhere between what PlayStation 1 and 2 games were capable of.
The sole redeeming feature of this video game car crash is the town itself, a well designed semi-urban environment that looks perfect for this indie Bully-like. Americana Agefield is a small open world with the school, red brick Agefield High, residential and shopping areas and a farm. However, under the surface, it’s a drab, boring town with little to do and horrendous to get around. Sam is able to ride a bike around Agefield, but they’re very scarce. On multiple occasions where it took 2-3 minutes to walk across town, I just held the thumbstick up whilst scrolling on my phone (and normally carried on during the cutscene cause I’d had enough of Sam and Chloe’s gormless eyes). What was all the more aggravating, after reaching the objective – often time involving doing very little – I’d have to just turn and walk back 3 minutes to the quest giver.
The handful of side-missions around the town give you the chance to earn some extra cash, but they offer nothing diverse. If you really want, you can cut more grass. I think the only thing worse than cutting my real garden lawn, is spending time cutting one in a game.
There are some basic open world quality-of-life additions that what would have made the experience slightly more tolerable. Fast travel would have saved me spending half of my playtime riding back to Sam’s house all the time, as would the ability to skip time to get to the next day. Alas, I have zero appetite to revisit Agefield if those are patched in.
Class, Dismissed
I was never the biggest lover of high school in the early 00s, fortunately for the next generation, modern education is infinitely more exciting than studying one of Agefield’s five subjects. They’re not an engaging class with fun dialogue, and aside from the diabolical Guitar Hero rip off music class, all subjects are no more than repetitive multiple-choice questionaires that stink of AI generation. Maths is simple arithmetic, English is something of a blank-filling spelling bee, with Geography a slightly more engaging map quiz. Admittedly, they’re accessible and not brain taxing but by the time you’ve completed the first week of the semester, you’ll be ready to bunk off to throw eggs at Mr Clint’s windows.
It is not just the classes that are boring to attend, it is that they’re regularly a barrier to game progression. Restrictive class times overlap with limited time slots you can start story missions. On many occasions I simply put my Steam Deck down for 15-minutes to let time pass by, just so Sam could go to bed and I could carry on with the game the next day. Amazingly, I didn’t fall asleep myself.
Guitar Zero
One of the highlights of culture of the 00s was the music. Guitar riffs, punk beats and even Guitar Hero. Agefield captures some of the era’s sounds, with regular unlicensed guitar beats playing to various mischief including getting chased from the cops. Individually, the brief riffs are fine. Though, you will hear them so frequently they quickly grate on you. They also cut out and restart all the time, almost like when in the 00s your portable CD player bounced on your belt strap.
On the flipside, you will (or hopefully, won’t) spend so much time playing without any audio whatsoever. Spending roughly half of your 8-10 hours riding your BMX from point A, to point B, the game plays no soundtrack at all. This just amplifies how important radios are in Rockstar-like games as seamless entertainment.
Refugium Games have included Guitar Hero-esque mini-games throughout Agefield including in the music class in school. Pressing face buttons in time with what’s on screen will get you through the chore, but bizarrely the buttons you press are never in-tune to the command prompts falling on your screen.
Technical Trainwreck
I will begin by stating that I played Agefield entirely on Steam Deck, therefore didn’t expect the game to be running at its optimum capability. However, prior to launch I was offered assurance that the game would run competently in lower graphics settings on the handheld. That, I can absolutely assure you, is not the case. Poor optimisation on a handheld PC device is the tip of the technical failure iceberg. Hard crashes, visual glitches and the game not behaving as it should only scratch the surface.
Sam’s classmates and other Agefield townsfolk can frequently be seen hovering around the town instead of walking, which was highly amusing as a full class load headed for 9am English one morning. On a few occasions at home, I would bump into Sam’s mom who would simply vanish. And the bicycle seems to have a physics engine of its own, sometimes glitching into the environments and launching you over the handlebars. I’m very accepting of indie game jank, it can be funny, but compounded with other flaws this game is a broken disaster.
Final Thoughts
If Rock the High was on the GPA scale it’d struggle to scrape 1.0. Agefield High can be summarised with three of the most damning adjectives to describe a game – ugly, boring and broken. Rare, amusing quips cannot save this gaming catastrophe.
A technical disaster that rarely works, layered on top of a hollow game with very little substance, Agefield needed to spend many more semesters in development detention. I cannot recommend Agefield to anyone, even the most hardened Bully, American Pie, or 00s pop culture fans.
Agefield High: Rock the School releases on Steam on August 12, 2026, with console releases to follow. The game was played for review on Steam Deck. Gamer Social Club would like to thank Refugium Games for the review code.
