New Mafia game is in early development at Hangar 13
This month, 2K is commemorating the Mafia franchise's 20th anniversary with a video and an incredibly long interview with Hangar 13 Developers General Manager Roman Hladk, Production and Media Director Tomá Hebek, and Game Director Tomá Hebek. AlexCox.
Hladk, who has worked on every Mafia chapter since its inception, confirmed the existence of a new game with the following words. Hangar 13 hasn't been doing well in recent years; before Mafia III, the studio shelved Project Rhapsody, a Cold War-themed game. At the end of 2021, we learnt of another major cancellation when Take-Two stated that it had to withdraw $53 million allocated for a Hangar 13 project codenamed Volt.
Unfortunately, a round of layoffs occurred just a few months ago, with even studio chief Haden Blackman quitting. We also learnt that the team was working on a Top Spin revival and a Mafia prequel using Unreal Engine 5, which is likely to be the game confirmed today.
I'm happy to confirm that we have started work on a new Mafia project! While there are a few years to go and we can't share anything for now, we are very excited to continue working on this beloved franchise and entertain our players with new stories.
According to previous rumors, the game takes place in or before the 1930s. Since 2002, three Mafia games have been released. These are third-person open world games set in America. The first two games were developed by 2K Czech, formerly known as Illusion Softworks. This studio amalgamated with Hangar 13, the developer behind Mafia III, in 2017. The company published a remake of the original game and a remaster of the second game two years ago.
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Senior Member
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I've read about he "prequel" idea. It's not without merit, but it really depends on the format. Hangar's Mafia 3 went for a GTA type layout of the missions with progress blocked off by the district takeovers. I honestly hope that that will not make a comeback. They should stick to the original Mafia mission structure, like they did with the remake of M1.
Senior Member
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Unreal Engine 5, nice, that will speed up development.
Senior Member
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Joined: 2005-02-14
Mafia 3 wasn't a bad bad game but it was an absolute hot mess of one and had zero to do with the first two games. Which is generally what happens when a new dev takes over. The Steam forum for it, however, was the most toxic I've seen aside Alien Isolation.
Senior Member
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Excellent my favourite two games, three was fine in itself but it wasn’t mafia and missed out on a great era it could have portrayed in the mafia.
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Joined: 2013-02-05
That is great news, as long as they follow the formula of Mafia 1 and 2.
If they go for something similar to Mafia 3, then it's going to be really bad.