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Become a crime kingpin in Mafia III
Gaming’s favourite crime-family simulator is back: we talk dodging the law with the new series devs.
Hit the streets of this fictional Louisiana
© Hangar 13/2K Games
It’s been six years since we last saw a major release in the long-running Mafia series, the hit franchise that has you rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, eventually taking it over – and now Mafia III is set to turn you into a gangster on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year.
While we’ve had a few other third-person action-adventure titles that have dealt with the seedy underbelly – Grand Theft Auto V , of course, springs to mind – there aren’t too many games that have the same style and substance as the Mafia series, plunging you into the past and detailing a compelling narrative of losing the cops and rising through the mob.
While genre stablemate GTA is set in much more contemporary times, the Mafia franchise has always been set much further back in time, placing you in the 1930s and 1940s in the previous two games, while the upcoming Mafia III is set to transport you to 1968 in a thriving city based on New Orleans, the Big Easy itself.
With California-based Hangar 13 taking over main developer duties from 2K Czech (which is supporting the studio), we spoke with game design director Matthias Worch to find out if the new studio’s fresh eyes will give a new take on the series, how deep you’ll be getting into the criminal underworld, and why no two playthroughs will be the same.
Hangar 13 are a new studio taking over the Mafia franchise – what’s the story there? Hangar 13 is the newest development studio inside 2K Games, headed up by industry veteran Haden Blackman. We are collection of experienced developers that have gathered around our shared love for the Mafia franchise. The people working on Mafia III have contributed to hit games like Bioshock, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, Dead Space, Splinter Cell, Saint’s Row, Far Cry, Infamous and the Star Wars franchise.
Hangar 13 is located just north of San Francisco in an old Air Force base that once stood in for Shanghai Airport in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. All hangars have since been converted into office space, but funnily enough, there isn’t an actual Hangar 13.
Tell us about your approach to developing Mafia III. Why the long wait since Mafia II? We started development by going back to the core of a Mafia game, which is the series’ penchant for interesting story-telling with strong characters and missions – all set in a specific location, time and place that we can fully immerse the player in. We wanted to make sure that Mafia III continues this tradition. We then tried to come up with the best setting, time period and character to create an interesting and unique experience: 1968 was a logical extension of the previous two games, which were placed in the '30s to '50s.
New Bordeaux, our heavily New Orleans-inspired fictional city, isn’t just iconic and diverse, it is also one of the oldest Mafia cities in the United States, with a very rich history in criminal activity. After we had established these two cornerstones, Lincoln Clay, our protagonist, just felt right – he is the perfect character to shine a light on this unique setting and to explore the criminal underworld of New Bordeaux.
Mafia III’s protagonist, Lincoln Clay
© Hangar 13/2K Games
What new features to the series can we expect in Mafia III? With Mafia III we’re fully utilising our open world of New Bordeaux. The entire city is full of areas to explore and secrets to find. On top of telling an interesting story that is punctuated by great character moments, memorable missions and set pieces, we are also modelling how the mob actually functions in this city. This starts with the capos and lieutenants that run the mob, all the way down to the street level, where drugs are being dealt, fraud is being committed, and public officials are getting bribed. All of this can be discovered and witnessed by the player, and it creates a host of activities that the player can interact with to drive the narrative forward – in our game, the act of playing the open world means playing the story.
Give us the elevator pitch – what’s the story and why will gamers want to play? Mafia III is an open-world action-adventure game set in New Bordeaux, a reimagined New Orleans during 1968, one of the most tumultuous years in American history. New Bordeaux is bustling with activity, complete with era-inspired cars, fashion and music. During this turbulent time, a cloud of corruption hangs in the air and the city has become a haven for organised crime. The Italian mob controls illegal gambling, drugs, and prostitution, while corrupt police and politicians line their pockets with the proceeds.
Mafia III follows the story of Lincoln Clay – a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran returning from combat and looking for a home and a place to belong. Orphaned as a child, Lincoln at last achieves a semblance of family with the city’s black mob, finding the surrogate father and brother he has longed for. But when Lincoln’s new family is betrayed and slaughtered by the Italian mob, he becomes fixated on revenge and wages a brutal war against the Italians, disrupting the balance of power in the seedy underworld of New Bordeaux. As the story progresses, Lincoln allies himself with other criminals and builds an empire and a new family of his own that transforms New Bordeaux.
Throughout the riveting story of Mafia III, players choose their path to revenge and build their own crime empire, using cunning and deception, or through overwhelming force and firepower. Mafia III combines the best of cinematic storytelling with a dynamic narrative structure that responds to player choices, set in a vibrant city that responds to Lincoln’s actions.
Lincoln takes a sit down meeting
© Hangar 13/2K Games
What do you spend most of your time doing as design director for the game? What are the key decisions you’ve made and elements you’ve chosen to prioritise, would you say? As Mafia III’s design director I oversee all game design on the project. I make sure that we put a lot of focus on giving players meaningful choices that shape the world, Lincoln, and Lincoln’s family.
On a day-to-day basis, I work with several lead designers to ensure that each area of the game is polished, fun and memorable, and we all make sure that Hangar 13’s studio motto “Every Player Story Is Unique” is infused into all parts of the game. This promise starts with the moment-to-moment gameplay and its myriad of gameplay approaches and options, and continues all the way up to the overarching narrative, where the decisions that the player makes during play influence how the overall story plays out.
What state is the game in currently, how many are working on it and how long have they been doing so for? We are currently finishing Mafia III and are looking forward to a world-wide October 7 release date. This release will be the culmination of years of work by a team in California, the Czech Republic and all around the world that has poured an unending stream of dedication and care into the game.
New Orleans inspired the setting for the game
© Hangar 13/2K Games
Graphics aside, what do you see as different this console generation that Mafia III can take advantage of compared to Mafia II? One of the most exciting things about modern hardware is that it allows us to simulate New Bordeaux to a level of detail that wasn’t possible before. We are able to create a complete, living world that is a true representation of its time: pedestrians roam the sidewalks, police patrol the streets, criminals live out their criminal life in shady backyard areas – and all of those events and gameplay systems interact and can be used to create new and often unexpected play experiences.
What visual benchmarks are you targeting for PS4 and Xbox One? 1080p/60fps? We don’t like talking about individual graphical features because it takes away from our actual focus: to create a fully immersive, film-worthy game experience that transports the player straight into the American South of the '60s. Our artists, engineers and technical designers have invested a lot of effort into capturing the time period and channeling that mood into the graphics that show up on screen. Mafia III will look and feel like a great '60s action movie like Bullitt. That comes through when simply cruising around the city and experiencing the world, and continues with story cutscenes that might make players occasionally forget they are playing a game.
You previously worked at other studios – how does your experience with Hangar 13 and 2K differ to that? I couldn’t be happier to be making games at Hangar 13! 2K Games is a company that is dedicated to creating unique and quality games that players love, and I think it’s evident that this through line continues into Mafia III, as well. We’ve felt nothing but support from the publishing arm of our company during development, and I believe that this support is clearly evident in the final product.
Mafia III is out on PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4 on October 7, 2016 worldwide. For more gaming coverage, be sure to follow @RedBullGames on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
