Mafia: Definitive Edition - remake of Mafia from Hangar 13

[OctavianRomulus]

So is this actually worth it or is this one of those games where gameplay is just filler between cutscenes a la Witcher 3?

 

[schru]

So is this actually worth it or is this one of those games where gameplay is just filler between cutscenes a la Witcher 3?

The original is well worth playing. The combat presents a nice degree of challenge.

 

[Quillon]

what a shit, cutscene to cutscene, boring af & changed for some fucked up reason remake, even the devs of this were aware it was shit so they made a beeline to the end campaign, keeping the gameplay to a minimum but even with that I don't have the patience to finish this shit

 

[OctavianRomulus]

what a shit, cutscene to cutscene, boring af & changed for some fucked up reason remake, even the devs of this were aware it was shit so they made a beeline to the end campaign, keeping the gameplay to a minimum but even with that I don't have the patience to finish this shit

Glad I was patient for the crack then. I was looking for some entertainment during the weekend and looks like I found it.

 

[ADL]

I hope you guys are pirating this shit because it ain't worth paying for, as someone that paid for it.

 

[Multidirectional]

I hope you guys are pirating this shit because it ain't worth paying for, as someone that paid for it.

I think I'll "demo" it soon for a while at least, if only to drive around the city with new graphics.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Your post reminds me of a Fallout 3 fan trying to convince people how FO1 surely would've had first-person real-time combat if it wasn't hampered by the technical limitations of the time.

I mean... it's quite likely it would have. Whether modern gaming styles are decline or not, they are the modern gameplay styles.

There were first person games back then (hello Ultima Underworld?). They still chose to go the isometric route. Me thinks this argument is bullshit.

And lol at them changing the story for this shitmaster. Can't wait for the inevitable sequel where we are going to get Mafia: Last of Us 2 edition 'since you know that shit is coming, don't you. Not even going to pirate this fucking shit.

 

[Lemming42]

Decided to give this a try, despite being very disillusioned by watching a full playthrough earlier, because it's on piracy sites now Mafia 1 is still one of my favourite games and playing through a new interpretation of the levels is too big a deal not to try.

Here's my full opinion. No mention of what they've done to the story (they fucked it), just purely a gameplay-based review:

Spoiler

An Offer You Can't Refuse - fucking terrible now. In the original game, one car is after you and it's up to you to use the game's mechanics in any way you can to lose or wreck the car. In this, there's like five cars plus a three-car roadblock on the bridge. Don't worry, though - driving into the special markers on the minimap will cause your pursuers to magically wreck, in a cutscene where you have no control! Fantastic. And if there's no car behind you because you lost them long ago, the game will just teleport one in to get dramatically wrecked. Great.

Running Man - much better, because on Classic difficulty, the driving controls and physics really are great fun, better than the original game's IMO. So driving around the city chilling out is a good experience. The chase at the end is more or less faithful to the original, albeit with the gay parkour shit now. I like that you can still tell the lady that her date is waiting in the opposite alleyway.

Ordinary Routine - gameplay-wise, a faithful remake (story-wise, less said the better). First taste of combat, and I wasn't feeling it at all. The stealth takedowns are utterly ridiculous, but there's an unavoidable gunfight in the bar at the end and my first experience of the combat mechanics was largely positive. Not a fan of cover shooters but this is about as good as they get, honestly. The car chase at the end was fucking dogshit, you can't freely aim at the enemy car and, again, where the original game pitted you against a single opponent, Definitive Edition throws in two or three extra pursuers, just because I guess you'd get bored otherwise?

Fairplay - better than the original. The race is still brutally unfair (I had to turn the difficulty down from Classic just to beat it), but driving the racecar through the city is a lot more fun now, especially when it's been sabotaged and the engine is falling apart. Really pleasingly harsh time limits too.

Sarah - the melee combat is awful, so this one sucks. The original game's melee combat was clunky, but the start of the fight where three guys all start beating the shit out of you at once and you can't even move was wonderfully brutal. Here, Tommy wipes the floor with everyone by spamming shitty little attacks which the opponents have no hope of blocking. They also politely attack one at a time like Bruce Lee's enemies. And the boss fight, just lol.

Better Get Used To It - Complete disaster. More shit melee combat, and then the shootout which was very tense in the original turns into some insane cinematic Saving Private Ryan affair where a warehouse explodes, a sign explodes and electrocutes some guy, five guys rush out guns blazing, a guy with a shotgun kicks down a door in your face, total crap. The chase at the end is ace though because the rain actually has an effect on the car, you go sliding everywhere.

The Saint And The Sinner - two chapters merged. The hotel shootout is pure fun, easily the best combat in the game so far. The church is a little bit shit - the original was great as you're pinned down at the end of the church and have to take out your assailants one-by-one. In this, because everything's got to be melodramatic, it turns into a laughable chase through the church where guys are just popping out of nowhere while not-Tommy yells insane bloodlust threats at some kid.

A Trip To The Country - terrible. Ridiculous battle to Sam's barn and then a completely fucking stupid defence segment where guys line up to walk into the barn and get shot by you. Then the truck chase, christ almighty. As if the original's wasn't bad enough, now it goes on for like 6 fucking hours and has an armoured truck boss fight. Retarded.

Omerta - you can actually ghost through the whole airport without firing a shot! Better than the original, IMO. Not least because the original was one of the game's weak points in encounter design.

Visiting Rich People - comically easily stealth with your stupid Sam Fisher takedowns, and then a forced shootout after the safe. Boring.

Great Deal - not as fun as the original, which was one of the triumphs of the original combat system, but it's decent cover-shooting fun.

Bon Appetit - the restaurant part is better than the original, since there's now enemies covering the exits out back, which of course there would be. The Carlo part sucks.

Happy Birthday - trash. Less freedom than the original, and then an unavoidable massive gunfight to escape the boat.

You Lucky Bastard - trash compared to the original, but more solid cover shooting action at the harbour.

Creme de la Creme - absolutely fucking comical. What the fuck were they thinking with the plane chase.

Election Campaign - really liked what they did with this. The original didn't make much sense, now there's much more detail on who the prison people are, and not all of them attack you. Sort of like a weird haunted house vibe. The forced fight against the cops at the end brings it down.

Just for Relaxation - dogshit.

Moonlighting - pretty much on par with the original.

The Death of Art - solid reinterpretation of the art gallery battle.

So overall, it got some moments right, made a couple of good design choices, but on balance it's generally weaker than the original game. And again, this is just in gameplay/level design. The story loses completely to the original*, to the point where I don't know what they were thinking with some of the changes they made.

*except for Sarah, who is better now, and Election Campaign, which now actually makes sense

 

[Multidirectional]

I've finished "Happy Birthday" just now. Fucking hated how I'm supposed to go along set path through a forced popamole combat after killing the target. The premise of the original mission was more or less realistic. You shoot the guy, then escape after while everyone is losing their heads. No need to engage in any combat, just run straight to the boat. In this there's only one path to it and any other pathways are blocked by objects like furniture and shit. And it's same shit throughout every other mission. Every shootout must be turned up to 11 with way higher body counts now.

The end of "Trip to The Country" pissed me off so much. In original is just few cop cars chasing you, in this one it's fucking waves of them and then that ridiculous armored truck fight at the end too.

"Fairplay" was actually way harder than original for me on Classic, to the point where I gave up and temporarily lowered difficulty to Medium. Cornering in original was way easier, just release the gas and the car makes turns no problem. In this it just controls like shit no matter what and every opponent is faster than you.

"Omerta" was pretty much impossible to do shooting my may through it. Also while in original I could improvise by grabbing a car and running over some enemies in this you can't even get into any cars in airport despite there being plenty of them. They're just scenery decorations. Apparently sneaking through is the way they want you to do it, and it's laughably easy too, making the mission very short.

For the most part this takes a game that was based around realism and immersion as inspiration and makes everything edgier and more "epic".

 

[DalekFlay]

There were first person games back then (hello Ultima Underworld?). They still chose to go the isometric route. Me thinks this argument is bullshit.

I read his post more as denying "if the technology existed to make Fallout 3 then, they would have made Fallout 1 similar to Fallout 3." As in picking up the industry and moving it back 10 years. You're right though, I think he more meant they chose to make it isometric as opposed to something like Daggerfall, which is true enough.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I read his post more as denying "if the technology existed to make Fallout 3 then, they would have made Fallout 1 similar to Fallout 3." As in picking up the industry and moving it back 10 years. You're right though, I think he more meant they chose to make it isometric as opposed to something like Daggerfall, which is true enough.

TES Arena - 1994
Witchaven - 1995
Witchaven 2 and TES Daggerfall - 1996

The technology did exist, it's just that Tim Cain wanted to make RPG instead of an action game.

 

[karoliner]

The game is okay but there is way too much driving around.

 

[jebsmoker]

you realize there's far less driving around than there is in the original mafia, right? you can skip it too

 

[Don Peste]

Why does Tommy look like Bela Lugosi? Also everyone's eyes look dead.

 

[Jugashvili]

I finished playing this on Classic difficulty; it must have taken me 12 or so hours to complete it, and my feelings are mixed. When I first started playing, I was very pleasantly surprised -- the opening cutscene was very faithful to the original, suggesting that it was simply going to be a HD remake that otherwise maintained the underlying structure. As the game progressed, however, it became obvious that the new developers had ideas of their own and that, for better or for worse, they were bent on making Mafia an entirely different game. Little by little, subtle changes are shown to have far-reaching consequences, making Mafia: DE a completely different game than Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, despite both of them having nearly identical plotlines.

One of the most basic changes is the game design philosophy, and this is apparent from the very first chase. The original game was predicated on building a sandbox and having it be a "third player" you had to contend with in order to succeed. You were free to explore and exploit the world as required to fulfill your goals, namely, in the first mission, to wreck or lose a car full of armed gangsters. How you went about doing this was entirely up to you. In the Definitive Edition, however, the devs have already laid out a path for you -- a series of markers that trigger scripted events in which the pursuing gangsters wreck their cars. Losing them becomes a matter of aligning the dots. Is any of the two better? I think they simply represent changing tastes -- the old game had a more subdued tone but more player freedom, the newer one sacrifices freedom for a more cinematic, Hollywood-esque feel. This becomes more and more apparent as the game progresses, as you are railroaded through a series of linear checkpoints and discouraged from applying creative solutions to problems. Want to jump over the railing behind you after assassinating the governor on the steamboat? Sorry, you can't, the devs have scheduled a gunfight among fireworks on the top deck and you simply have to go through it. The barn in a trip to the country is completely linear. In the end, the game's challenge simply lies in your ability to perform mechanical tasks and overcome scripted waves of enemies. Conversely, events have been made "epic" to suit zoomer tastes. Where there was one car, there now are five; where there were five enemies, there are now 20. Where there was a regular chase, there is now a boss fight against an armored car with improbable Hollywod stunts. I'm not saying the original was "realistic", but it was certainly more down-to-earth.

This leads me to another thing I have noticed about the Definitive Edition: it feels noticeably shorter than the original. Not the original was a long game, but a full playthrough would take more than 10-15 hours. I have noticed this is due to several factors. The first one is that they have, quite simply, cut a lot of content. There were hardly any side quests in the original, but you were encouraged to go hunt for rare cars after missions with the Lucas Bertone quests, and this had a positive impact on the game by unlocking rare and desirable cars for you in later missions. In this game, not only do you get all the cars there are to get in the main quest, you also have your pick of vehicles from the garage a la Mafia II, which eliminates most of the incentive behind learning how to steal cars. In the original, Ralphie taught you how to pick an increasing number of car locks, encouraging you to prowl the streets for one to steal -- this could, in turn, lead to its own emergent mini-story as you escaped from the police, wrecked the car in the process, stole another, etc. and basically gave meaning to the open world. In the DE, however, you leave the garage with the car of your choice and have little or no incentives to switch cars en route. In fact, the new system which spawns omniscient policemen and a bounty even when there are no witnesses actively discourages non-MQ shenanigans. As a result, there are many places you hardly ever visit, as there is no reason to visit them whatsoever. The old open world is there, but it has lost much of its raison d'etre.

Strangely enough, I have found the GPS, which is even present on Classic difficulty, to have a huge effect on the game. Tom is a cabbie, and a cabbie's job is to know how to navigate his city quickly and efficiently. In the original game, you acquired the skills of a cabbie organically -- you had a map and it was up to you to plan and design the best routes from point A to point B. As your knowledge of the city increased, you also learned about viable escape routes, place to lose your pursuers or make them crash, and relied less and less on the map and more and more on your gut feeling. By the end, you felt you had a working knowledge of how to navigate Lost Heaven. This doesn't happen in the DE. I had forgotten most of the layout of the city since I last played the original, and after 12 hours of DE I hardly felt I had learned anything about it. This is because the GPS puts your brain on autopilot -- your brain unconsciously pays more attention to following the line than to the streets themselves. I'm not surprised zoomers feel the driving is an unnecessary chore and want it to be skippable, because driving on autopilot is not engaging; it is a purely mechanical task.

When it comes to the story, several reviewers and the new devs themselves have crowed about how they have "improved" it. I don't think "improve" is the word, even though the voice acting is much more polished than in the original. For starters, there is a generation gap between the writers. The first one seems to have been written by fans of late-20th century gangster flicks like Goodfellas and The Godfather, whereas the Definitive Edition has been written by people raised on The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. Even though the structure of the story is the same, the tone has changed. The new Tommy Angelo is a strange bird. In the original, he was obviously meant to be Everyman -- someone you, the player, could identify with, a regular Joe who got roped into the world of organized crime. Nu-Tommy, however, speaks and behaves like a wiseguy from the start, chomping at the bit to attack Morello's bar. They have wanted to make him more "badass", and yet he is a lot more emotional than old Tom, tearing up when he accidentally blows up Sergio Morello's wife, preventing Paulie from shooting a waitress, etc. The other characters have also undergone changes that make them entirely different people. In the original, Paulie is a violent, slightly low-IQ thug in the original whose lack of moral inhibitions end up getting him killed. In the remake, he is a comic relief idiot who is deeply frustrated with his life. In the original, Sam is a cold-blooded killer who values loyalty to the don above friendship, whereas in the remake he is an opportunist with a yellow streak. Don Salieri has been "Sopranoized", for some absurd reason they made Frank talk like Lyric Suite, giving him a FOB Italian accent even though he's been in Burgeristan for over 40 years, and they added some bullshit story about a greyhound so soyboys could empathize with the heckin' doggerino (in order not to upset Reddit, shooting dogs is haram in the DE, btw). The reviewers rave about how Sarah is more relevant now, but they just made her a stock current year Stronk&Independent Wombyn who makes Tommy feel bad for murdering the guy who enacted women's suffrage. And for no reason at all and to no benefit for the gameplay, they made Salvatore only speak Italian, but instead sounding like a terrone he speaks like the voices in a Parla e Scrivi textbook.

I find the ending to be particularly bad. It's amazing how, despite largely following the script, they completely altered the tone -- instead of a gloating, self-sufficient Sam showering you with dirty money as he revels in having manipulated his long-time friend into falling into a trap, we see Sam scared and insecure, despite having somehow had the time to prepare a huge ambush in the gallery even though Tommy only told him to meet him there a few minutes ago (in the original, it was clear he had planned it from the start). The original ending finishes on an anxious note -- rather than beg for his life like in the DE, Sam taunts Tommy, predicting that he will end up killed all the same, revealing Frank and the whore's deaths in an unexpected revelation. Thus, while original Tommy lives in fear for the rest of his days, his distorted face a testament to the fact that crime doesn't pay, nu-Tommy dies smiling, like a philosopher, happy that his family is now "safe" (why? Salieri didn't hesitate to bump Frank's family, why wouldn't he bump his?).

Finally, I would like to add a note on the sound. I appreciate the fact that they wanted to add radio stations, but I felt I enjoyed this game's soundtrack a lot less than the original's. I can do without the fake broadcasts and cigarette advertisements written for zoomers who see the 20th century as a strange and exotic time ("lulz doctors recommended cigarettes they wuz strange amirite") and generic lessons on world history. I'll take some good Django Reinhardt over LARP radio anytime.

So much for the bad things, what about the good ones? Obviously, the graphics look amazing. They have obviously put a lot of work into the city and they were faithful to the spirit of the original by updating its appearance as the years go by (newer cars, liquor advertisements after prohibition). The streets feel crowded and alive. The addition of motorcycles is nice, but a wasted opportunity since you only really have to ride one once. The shooting mechanics are not bad, and the enemy makes a very aggressive use of fire and movement that prevents it from degenerating into static popamole shootouts. Cops reacting to more infractions, such as driving on sidewalks, is a welcome addition to keep you from getting too crazy if you want to go unnoticed. The game was an enjoyable experience overall. However, I do not think these strengths would have been enough to make this game a hit like the original was as there is simply not enough to keep you entertained to make this anything other than a 10-15 hour diversion worth playing out of curiosity or nostalgia.

 

[cretin]

was going to post a review, but Jugashvili covers everything I wanted to say and more.

Don't pay money for this. It's very pretty, but ultimately a hollow experience. I'm 80% through it and I'm thinking about just attempting to get o.g MAFIA working again.

Burgeristan for over 40 years, and they added some bullshit story about a greyhound so soyboys could empathize with the heckin' doggerino (in order not to upset Reddit, shooting dogs is haram in the DE, btw)

This was the most bemusing thing in the game for me. When i first heard in the game, i thought it was some clever allegory about a woman. Nope, turns out the story really is about a fucking dog. I dont think zoomers and redditards realize that a couple of wops who grew up in sicily in the late 1800s would not give a fuck about a dog, probably even ate them on occasion.

 

[cretin]

Also thought this was interesting, someone on youtube translated some of Daniel Vavra's commentary about the remake:

"The worst part about the remake is that I had an idea I wanted to convey, but now the idea is gone and the only thing that remains is just a plain shooter game, just because someone rewrote the script, just because someone didn't put his own idea in it, just like "family is my everything, I would do anything for them" is a sentence you will hear from every guy when he drinks 5 beers, there's nothing more to this... If I was a script doctor, I would tell him to rewrite the whole thing, purely from the professional view, the original script from 18 years ago works better, if someone rewrote the script and didn't understand what the idea was, and ignored the biggest ideas from the first Mafia game, then I'm pretty sad and disappointed because all the effort and ideas we put in the first game are gone and this will be the only thing people will play in the next 10 years. (because of the better graphics) It's missed opportunity, it's pity that most of the magic is gone, don't get me wrong, the graphics are gorgeous, the acting is great, but the philosophy of the realistic game is gone, everything that made the game a classic is gone, now it's just generic third person cover shooter, and there has been lot of these games in the last 15 years. I put a lot of effort, time and a whole part of my life to make this game work, and trust me, it was a hell."

 

[DalekFlay]

I almost bought this in the last Steam sale but I really don't like cover shooters much anymore and also it seems to run like shit on mid-range hardware. Maybe in a few years I'll get it for $5 and see what it's about, like I did Mafia 3.

 

[ADL]

Also thought this was interesting, someone on youtube translated some of Daniel Vavra's commentary about the remake:

"The worst part about the remake is that I had an idea I wanted to convey, but now the idea is gone and the only thing that remains is just a plain shooter game, just because someone rewrote the script, just because someone didn't put his own idea in it, just like "family is my everything, I would do anything for them" is a sentence you will hear from every guy when he drinks 5 beers, there's nothing more to this... If I was a script doctor, I would tell him to rewrite the whole thing, purely from the professional view, the original script from 18 years ago works better, if someone rewrote the script and didn't understand what the idea was, and ignored the biggest ideas from the first Mafia game, then I'm pretty sad and disappointed because all the effort and ideas we put in the first game are gone and this will be the only thing people will play in the next 10 years. (because of the better graphics) It's missed opportunity, it's pity that most of the magic is gone, don't get me wrong, the graphics are gorgeous, the acting is great, but the philosophy of the realistic game is gone, everything that made the game a classic is gone, now it's just generic third person cover shooter, and there has been lot of these games in the last 15 years. I put a lot of effort, time and a whole part of my life to make this game work, and trust me, it was a hell."

Guess it's time for Vavra to make another mobster game to teach everyone how it's done. Preferably from the first person perspective with as many immersive sim elements as Kingdom Come Deliverance.

 

[cretin]

Guess it's time for Vavra to make another mobster game to teach everyone how it's done. Preferably from the first person perspective with as many immersive sim elements as Kingdom Come Deliverance.

Nah, he should move on to whatever is interesting to him. I don't know how much Vavra is into Mafia stuff personally, but as a writer you rarely want to revisit stuff you did decades ago unless you have really fresh ideas. I didn't find the writing in M2 to be particularly inspired.

I mean sure I bet warhorse studios could make a great mobster game, but specific to writing I wouldn't expect Vavra to be particularly interested, and not at all surprised if he let someone else do the writing entirely while he focused on direction.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I love the genre and I've grown up with the best examples of noir and gangster/revisionary gangster movies, but I admit it's limited in the themes you can touch on. As is any genre really, otherwise it wouldn't be a genre. This historical summary confirmed my impressions, may be interesting for you:

 

[J_C]

Vávra should make a 70s-80s gangster game, ala Scarface.

 

[Belegarsson]

I bought the game for 10 bucks due to Humble Bundle's pricing error. Halfway through, and I find it to be an oddly "urgent" game.

Why urgent? Jugashvili made a lot of points about how deeply integrated Tommy's occupation as a cabbie is to the city itself. There's a reason why the OG Mafia had the quasi-official subtitle "The City of Lost Heaven", as LH was like half the protagonist of the game. Here, it acts more like a backdrop in your usual open world game and plays even a more minimal role than Mafia 3. The hand holding waypoint, the lack of natural exploration incentives, the fact that it's really difficult to navigate and learn where you are based on sign posts which feels like the game wasn't designed for no radar experience at all. Even the existence of the optional "skip drive" feature makes me question about the developer's commitment to what Mafia truly is.

In missions, you no longer walk to the garage, get into a car and drive out naturally. Now there's either a pre-picked car waiting for you outside of Vincenzo's quarter, or you can choose it in Mafia 2-esque menu. When you drive back to the bar or to a story location, the game often doesn't really let you physically drive there, but rather skip straight to a cutscene once you're near them. The only exception I've seen so far is in Fairplay when you drive back the sabotaged car.

Tommy's character development feels gone by too quickly too. In OG Running Man, I remember Tommy had to drive 5 passengers before getting attacked by Morello's goons. It served as a kick back to reality after the fast paced introduction earlier, the reality where Tommy was still stuck in a mundane and often looked down job (which was reenacted in M2 with Vito working at Derek's dock). In DE I felt there was very little frustration in him when his car got wrecked, and the cab gameplay was too short to feel any kind of unfulfillment and wish to change from Tommy.

Sarah chapter is another example. You can fight all those punks with 2 buttons on Classic difficulty, and there's a gamey big bad boss with a baseball bat. That's really unnecessary.

It's a cinematic but at the same time is also a very snappy action game. Mafia 3 had a lot of faults but I loved the catharsis killing spree from pure rage that was in line with Lincoln's revenge story. This game, it just feels like the equivalent of a Hollywood's Oldboy remake, one that tried to bring back the soul, the look and the edge of the OG but kinda missed the point entirely. It's the flashy version of Mafia yet it still retains stuffs like gas station, speed limiter, realistic vehicle damage which feel detached to the rest of the game. I can't tell what the hell kind of game it wanted to be exactly.

 

[JDR13]

I bought the game for 10 bucks due to Humble Bundle's pricing error.

You got pretty lucky. I saw that shit and tried to buy it, but they literally corrected the error sometime between me putting it in my shopping cart and hitting the purchase button.

Despite the decline, it sounds like you're enjoying it for the most part.

 

[ferratilis]

https://mafiagame.com/news/mafia-20th-anniversary-developer-interview/

MAFIA 20TH ANNIVERSARY DEVELOPER INTERVIEW​

WE LOOK BACK ON 20 YEARS OF THE MAFIA SERIES WITH DEVELOPERS WHO HAVE WORKED ON THE GAMES SINCE THE VERY START.

Spoiler

Let's raise a glass to everyone who's been a part of this amazing Mafia community over the past 20 years. As of August 2022, it's been two decades since the iconic Mafia series made its debut with Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.

It's been one hell of a ride, from the very first Mafia to Mafia II, Mafia III, and the faithful, ground-up remake of Mafia: Definitive Edition. But it hasn't been easy. Whether it was the humble beginnings of a tiny development team working on a game that initially had nothing to do with organized crime, to finding just the right way to modernize and build on the vision of the game that started it all, there have been plenty of challenges along the way.



To commemorate Mafia's 20th Anniversary, we spoke to some longtime Hangar 13 developers: General Manager Roman Hladík and Head of Production and Media Director Tomáš Hřebíček have worked on every game in the series starting with the original, while Game Director Alex Cox has been with the series since Mafia II.

Read on to hear their stories as they look back on the last 20 years of making Mafia, covering their history with the franchise and sharing some of their favorite moments—along with a special announcement about the future of the Mafia series.


Hladík, Hřebíček, and Cox show up in the games via these Wanted poster collectibles.

What role did you have when you first started working on the Mafia series, and how has it evolved in the years since?

Roman Hladík: I've been with the company—which was originally Illusion Softworks, an independent game developer in the Czech Republic—since probably the summer of '97, so I'll have been here about 25 years this year. Originally I joined the team as a 2D artist, learning a little bit of 3D, but I became a character artist on the original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. When we started on the original Mafia, it was just four or five people. Eventually we grew to 10 people; when we finished, it was a development team of around 20-25 people.

On Mafia II I got a chance to step up into the role of Art Director. That was probably the longest development we experienced, around eight years. We were still doing work on the console ports of the first Mafia, and we had to change Mafia II's game engine midway through the development, so it was a bit of a struggle. Mafia III was when we established the Hangar 13 team in Novato, with a couple of people from the Czech Republic moved to the US to work on it. On Mafia III, I was in charge of the team in the Czech Republic as a supporting Art Director, mostly doing art production and outsourcing.

Following Mafia III, I got a chance to become a studio head—General Manager, if you will, which is what I'm doing now. For Mafia: Definitive Edition, it was too much to do both the Art Director and General Manager work at the same time, so I asked our former colleague Petr Motejzík to join the team as the Art Director on Mafia: Definitive Edition. That said, I mostly got to keep the work on lighting and atmospheric effects to myself, which I always liked.

Tomáš Hřebíček: I started at the same time as Roman when we formed the team for the original Mafia. When we started, it was a different game concept entirely for a couple months before Daniel Vávra, the writer of the original Mafia, brought up the idea of doing a gangster game.

I started as a 3D graphic artist. I was always into visual effects; I remember being inspired and motivated to study visual effects from watching movies like Terminator 2 on VHS. I was also making amateur movies with a friend of mine back then; that's how I learned the craft of camera animation. As the Director of Photography on the original Mafia, I wanted to bring film-grade cinematography to the game.

I was also into new technology, so I convinced the team to purchase a motion capture setup—it had a magnetic field base, only covered 2x2 meters, and could only fit one actor at a time. But it was huge for us, and we got very creative; for instance, for scenes with a bunch of guys shooting at one another, we had to choreograph the whole shootout while only being able to record the actors one by one.

Towards the end of the original game I also was helping to lead the team, which led to a role as Animation Director on Mafia II and Media Director on Mafia III. After Mafia III, when Roman took over the studio here in Brno, I took the role of the Head of Production here in the Czech Republic as well as the Media Director role. For Mafia: Definitive Edition, I was with the team directing the motion capture sessions in the US and directing the final edits.


Fun fact: Hřebíček is the model for the gun-toting gangster on the cover art of the original Mafia and the silhouetted mobster in the Mafia II logo.

Alex Cox: I used to be a Producer at 2K, working with the guys on Mafia II; that was my first experience with the franchise, and my first job in Production outside of QA. I spent a lot of time working on-site with the team when 2K acquired Illusion Softworks and turned it into 2K Czech, and we became more closely involved with the development than we had been previously. I spent a lot of time with the team onsite during the development of Mafia II. I was as closely involved as I could be as an external producer, then I officially joined the team as a Designer towards the end of Mafia II and moved to the Czech Republic.

I was also a Designer on Mafia III, then became the Game Director of Mafia: Definitive Edition a couple years later. I've moved around to a lot of the studio locations: I currently work now in the Brighton studio, I worked with Roman and Tomáš over in Brno, spent a couple of years in the Prague office—so I've definitely floated around.



How does it feel to see the series build up such a devoted, global fandom in the years since the original game launched?

Hřebíček: It's been extremely rewarding. Earlier this year I was able to attend the Mafia Orchestral Concert performed by the Brno Philharmonic. Not only do they play the music—some of which they had to recreate from scratch, because the original score was lost—but they show the respective cutscenes from the games on a giant screen. When I saw the intro to the first Mafia game with all our names, I remembered the good times when I was setting up specific shots back in the day. Watching all the people in attendance enjoying it—it was so rewarding. I was so proud of our team.

Hladík: Especially in the Czech Republic, the Mafia series is such a well-known thing. There are now multiple generations who know the Mafia series, which is awesome.

Cox: As Tomáš and Roman said, it's a national institution in the Czech Republic and in surrounding countries as well, which is really interesting. I can't tell you how many times I've been over in Brno, and during the taxi ride to the studio, the driver will strike up a conversation with me about Mafia and how excited they are about the fact that Mafia is a homegrown franchise from the Czech Republic. There's a lot of national pride in the franchise.



Which game in the series is most near and dear to your heart?

Hřebíček: For me, it has to be the original Mafia. It was so enjoyable working on Definitive Edition because it brought back so many memories from 20 years ago, and we could make the game even prettier—but we were also terrified because we knew we had to do it the right way. But the original Mafia will always be so tied to the beginning of my game development career and my younger days, with all the life events, struggles, and positives that came with them.

Hladík: If I had to pick, it would be Mafia II, because that game was the one where I had the biggest impact with my work on it. Being the Art Director from beginning to the end—it was a struggle, but we made it through. I invested a lot of energy into it. So yes, for me it was probably Mafia II, although I like all of them.

Cox: Like Tomáš with the first Mafia, Mafia II was my introduction to the Mafia franchise, and it was where I really fell in love with the series and saw that core appeal. But Mafia: Definitive Edition is where I really felt the weight of responsibility, because I didn't work on the original game and I wasn't about to break the hearts of the hardcore fans of the franchise. So Mafia: Definitive Edition is our most recent achievement and I'm most proud of it, but Mafia II will always be special to me.



Which updates in Mafia: Definitive Edition felt the most impactful to you?

Cox: We tried to be quite responsible with where we changed or added things to the story. Usually we only added things to improve the pacing where things had slowed down a little bit. Overall, I think we did a good job elevating the character of Sarah, who was the only female character in the original game. She got short shrift in the original plot—she felt like a very throwaway character.

We worked quite hard to reintegrate her into the story for Definitive Edition, and there are some really touching scenes between her and Tommy, which come through not just from the revised design and the writing, but also from the execution on stage and the high-fidelity performances.

Hladík: On the original Mafia, there were a lot of technical limitations; for example, the draw distance was only a couple hundred meters, so you never got to see grandiose views of the city. With Mafia: Definitive Edition, we had this amazing opportunity to enhance the vision of the first game—suddenly we could create scenic vistas and better express the atmosphere of 1930s cities.

Cox: And this is a more dorky thing, but because Mafia: Definitive Edition was part of the Mafia: Trilogy package, it allowed us to do a little bit of a retconning, bringing the original Mafia game a bit more into the same universe as the other two titles. With the collectible cigarette cards, we presented gangsters from all three games as they would've looked in the 1930s. Being able to flesh out the backstory, unite the lore, and bring the three titles closer together was cool.

Hřebíček: It was amazing going from only being able to capture one actor 20 years ago to now being able to capture the full stage performance, including all the details of the actors' faces, which really helped the story shine. In the first game, the player's imagination had to fill in a lot of the gaps; in one scene, a mobster posing as a train attendant is waiting around and tapping his fingers with boredom, except the technology limitations meant that it was just his stiffened hand moving slightly up and down. [laughs]

For Definitive Edition, we could play with all the details, capture every bit of the performances. There's that iconic scene when Tommy comes back to Sarah after a bloody shootout, and there's very little dialogue—but we understand so much about the connection Tommy and Sarah have through the detailed expressions on their faces.



For those who don't know, Mafia: Definitive Edition has some pretty outlandish Free Ride unlockables, like a dog head and an alien outfit for Tommy, that call back to the original game's Free Ride Extreme mode. Did you have to fight to bring those goofier things back?

Cox: We didn't have to convince anyone. [laughs] Everybody wanted to do it. The original Mafia had quite a lot of Easter Eggs, and the fanbase really geeked out on trying to find and document them all. It became this kind of legendary lore among players—knowing every Easter Egg was like proof that you were a superfan of Mafia. In those days, when internet coverage of video games was less sophisticated, being able to share those secrets was like a badge of honor for Mafia fans.

A lot of the people who had worked on the first game were still at the studio and asked to bring back some of the secrets they'd done originally that the community loved. So it was great to be able to include that stuff in Definitive Edition's Free Ride mode. It's a bit of an old-school idea to put in a wacky game mode, but it wouldn't have been the same game without at least a nod towards the stuff that was in the original.



Over these past 20 years, what have been the biggest lessons you've learned about game development?

Hladík: I would say we are learning all the time. With every project we do, we learn new stuff, because things keep developing, right? In the early days of Mafia, making games was... I wouldn't say easier, but it was a small team with simpler technology and so on. Games and technology keep developing, so it's all about constant learning.

The biggest lesson came after we managed to release the original Mafia, and we thought we fully knew how to make games. We started to work on Mafia II and it was a huge challenge—the development was slow and we were constantly hitting new issues. It was a lesson for all of us who thought we had learned enough just by doing the first game. That was the biggest realization: this is never, ever going to be easy.

Hřebíček: Another important lesson for me has been: get your assets running in the game as soon as possible and try to keep them there. A lot of the time, something seems like it's almost done, but it really isn't—the last 10% is so difficult because that's when we're checking it in the game along with everything else.

Early on, I had been so focused on the cinematic feel and animations in the story cutscenes—but I learned over the years that the game itself is more important. We need to think about the game first, then support it with a great story. To the new artists in the industry out there: you are not just a graphic artist, you are a game developer. Every discipline and department should constantly take stock of what the game is actually about.

Hladík: Right. An experienced developer will understand the other fields of development, and how other departments are working and what they're building. One example that illustrates Tomáš' point: early on with the first game, we were trying to employ architects who we thought would be great for making the environment assets. And they are, but they had a hard time bypassing real-world constraints for the sake of level design. So yeah, it's really important to accept that it's not just your discipline and your assets that make up the game. You have to understand the whole thing.

Cox: Any seasoned developer will, at some point, come to the conclusion that the one mantra to project success is: keep it simple, stupid. Don't overcomplicate things; really understand what you're good at and just do that. That's something we learned with Mafia: Definitive Edition—rather than reinventing the game, rather than changing it substantially into something different, we identified what people liked about the game originally: the distinctive, cinematic crime fantasy.

And we just really, really drilled down on that and focused on the execution. How do we modernize it without changing it? How do we make it more beautiful without altering the general atmosphere of Lost Heaven? I think that was a really good emphasis for us, and as a team we're carrying that into our future titles, understanding what our core competencies are and building on them to create even better games going forward.



As a rapid-fire way to close us out: can you share your personal favorite Mafia protagonist, side character, and mission?

Hladík: Joe from Mafia II might be both my favorite side character and protagonist, if you count the Joe's Adventure DLC! [laughs] But focusing just on the protagonists, it would probably be Tommy. I also really like the side character of Thomas Burke in Mafia III. For missions, that's a difficult one; I think the farm in 'A Trip to the Country' from Mafia: Definitive Edition has a really nice atmosphere and great gameplay elements.

Hřebíček: Ugh, I was about to say the same mission; you stole mine! [laughs] There are so many great and crazy characters in Mafia III—you mentioned Burke, and I love Donovan too. For main protagonists, I would say it's pretty close between either Tommy or Vito. For side characters, let's say Paulie; I felt he was too naive in the original Mafia, but we improved his character for Mafia: Definitive Edition for sure.

Cox: My favorite protagonist is Vito; he was the first hero I fell in love with. There's great sidekicks in all the games, but I would have to say Donovan in Mafia III is my favorite side character. There's a mission in Mafia II called 'In Loving Memory of Francesco Potenza'—it's not a very gameplay-heavy mission, just the guys driving around in a car together. They're super drunk, they've just been to a brothel, and they realize they've got a dead body in the trunk that they have to go bury.

Chaos ensues, but what's really beautiful about that mission is how it shows that core of the fantasy with this trio of friends, where crime and real life intersect. I think that's the heart of the franchise, really. There's The Family, and the family—these guys are really close friends, they're blood brothers, they have to face weightier, darker subject matters in their life of crime. So getting to hear them drunkenly singing together as they drive back from burying a body in the forest is a really evocative scene for me.

Lastly, can you tell us anything about what's next for the Mafia franchise?

Hladík: I'm happy to confirm we've started work on an all-new Mafia project! While it's a few years away and we can't share anything more right now, we're really excited to keep working on this beloved franchise and to entertain our players with new stories.

Lastly, can you tell us anything about what's next for the Mafia franchise?

Hladík: I'm happy to confirm we've started work on an all-new Mafia project! While it's a few years away and we can't share anything more right now, we're really excited to keep working on this beloved franchise and to entertain our players with new stories.