How Mafia: The Old Country is Taking us Back to the Roots of Organized Crime

With the new trailer for Mafia: The Old Country that debuted throughout The Recreation Awards 2024, we’ve revealed our first have a look at the protagonist of this 1900s crime drama: Enzo Favara, an orphaned laborer given the uncommon alternative to be a part of the Torrisi crime household. By swearing an oath of loyalty to Don Torrisi, Enzo begins his descent into the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily, the place he’ll have to show his value via uncooked grit and willpower.

Mafia: The Old Country is coming to Xbox Collection X|S in Summer time 2025 and is available to wish list now on the Microsoft Store. To share extra about this new story in the acclaimed Mafia sequence, Recreation Director Alex Cox particulars what gamers can count on from this third-person, action-adventure set amidst the origins of organized crime.

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What made the Hangar 13 crew resolve that 1900s Sicily was the finest time and place to set the subsequent title in the Mafia franchise?

Recreation Director Alex Cox: Each Mafia title goals to immerse gamers in an iconic interval of organized crime historical past. Mafia: The Old Country is no totally different, though we’ve modified continents and turned again the clock! With the first three video games exploring distinctive eras of the American Mafia, we cherished the concept of heading to Sicily and exploring the early years of this fearsome crime group. The setting felt like an incredible alternative to shake issues up whereas completely complementing the cinematic imaginative and prescient of the franchise.

Creating Mafia: The Old Country has been a refreshing departure for the studio, with the rugged Sicilian countryside serving as a stark distinction to the bustling cities featured in our earlier video games. Constructing this story has been an incredible expertise for everybody at Hangar 13—first studying about Sicilian historical past and the origins of the Mafia, then adapting that into an thrilling prison journey. Specifically, the setting has allowed us to introduce some enjoyable new options, resembling horses, knife duels, and classic automobiles from the daybreak of motoring (together with hand-crank engines, of course!).

How have the Hangar 13 crew tried to recreate such an uncommon, and beforehand unexplored, location and period with 1900s Sicily?

Cox: We wouldn’t have made this recreation except we felt ready to do justice to the setting, so the very first thing we did was go to Sicily ourselves to soak up its sights and sounds and get a firsthand really feel for the island and its tradition. We’ve been working intently with Stormind Video games, a Sicilian improvement studio that has supplied invaluable steerage throughout our visits and all through all our analysis.

We additionally consulted with consultants in Sicilian historical past, who helped us infuse the recreation with all the interval element gamers count on from a Mafia title. From getting the brickwork excellent, to deciding on the good folks music, to selecting the juiciest Sicilian profanities, we’ve accomplished every part we are able to to guarantee a singular sense of place permeates each second of the expertise.

What varieties of distinctive challenges did you encounter by setting Mafia: The Old Country in 1900s Sicily? Has it been arduous to be sure that genuine interval weapons and automobiles are nonetheless thrilling for gamers used to extra fashionable alternate options?

Cox: Our strategy to 1900s weaponry has been to make fight extra tactical and deliberate than in earlier Mafia titles. Gunfights in Mafia: The Old Country are hardly ever about uncooked firepower; gamers will want to make the finest use of no matter sources they’ve at hand. To ship a hearty dose of interval taste, we’ve leaned closely into the “instruments of the commerce” of a Sicilian Mafioso, from lupara shotguns to stiletto blades. There’s actual grit to these older, extra conventional weapons.

As for the modes of transportation, each recreation in the Mafia sequence has authentically recreated the automobiles of its period—however we’ve by no means had the participant using on horseback earlier than! Galloping throughout the Sicilian countryside feels extremely releasing and is in contrast to something we’ve accomplished in the previous.

In the meantime, the cars introduced a enjoyable problem for the crew. Capturing the really feel of automobiles from the daybreak of motoring means you gained’t be hitting freeway speeds on Sicily’s grime roads, nevertheless it’s nonetheless thrilling to be behind the wheel of a getaway automobile as rival gangs give chase.

What’s been the most fun half of going again this far in the Mafia timeline?

Cox: Exploring the roots of the Mafia has been genuinely fascinating, particularly as this setting and time interval are fairly distinctive in video video games. Iconic crime movies and TV exhibits have given us a glimpse into Cosa Nostra’s early days, however this is our probability to make the prison underworld of 1900s Sicily playable, which is extremely thrilling.

As a result of this story takes place earlier than the occasions of the different Mafia video games, we’ve been ready to create a brand new entry level to the franchise narrative whereas nonetheless tying in with characters and occasions from later in the timeline. You completely don’t want to have performed the different Mafia video games to respect this story, as the foremost forged is totally new—however followers of the sequence will get a kick out of how Mafia: The Old Country connects to the relaxation.

Contemplating that roughly 5 years could have handed since the launch of Mafia: Definitive Version, how did the crew deal with persevering with the sequence’ custom of immersive cinematic storytelling?

Cox: Our cinematic storytelling is solely made doable thanks to our unbelievable, Hollywood-caliber forged. Each Mafia recreation has been blessed with top-quality performing expertise, however I actually really feel that Mafia: The Old Country options our strongest performances to date. As with earlier Mafia titles, we’ve used state-of-the-art movement seize expertise to convey each nuance and emotion our forged brings to the stage.

We’ve additionally switched to Unreal Engine 5 for the improvement of Mafia: The Old Country, which has allowed for a good increased stage of visible constancy than earlier Mafia titles. Our environments and characters are extra lifelike and plausible than ever earlier than. We’re doing every part we are able to to make our story fully immersive, whether or not via seamlessly transitioning into cinematics or permitting the participant to discover extremely detailed narrative scenes throughout gameplay.

How did the crew be sure that Mafia: The Old Country‘s interpretation of Sicily not solely continued, however contributed to the legacy of their earlier takes on iconic places like New York, Chicago, and New Orleans?

Cox: What made our renderings of Misplaced Heaven, Empire Bay, and New Bordeaux profitable was the studio’s dedication to authenticity and a spotlight to element, which enabled gamers to really inhabit these places and immerse themselves in bygone eras. In a lot the similar approach, the crew’s first precedence when growing Mafia: The Old Country was to make Sicily herself really feel like a personality central to the story. This time, working in Unreal Engine 5, we’ve been ready to make Sicily much more visually spectacular than the places we constructed earlier than.

What different varieties of distinctive challenges may gamers count on to face in Mafia: The Old Country? Are there every other parts distinctive to The Old Country that gamers haven’t encountered in earlier Mafia titles?

Cox: Exploring a fantastically realized interpretation of 1900s Sicily—from citrus farms and vineyards to the gorgeous hilltop city of San Celeste and the rolling countryside in between—has been core to our imaginative and prescient for Mafia: The Old Country since day one. It’s arduous to overstate the influence our new setting has had on the expertise, even when it’s all nonetheless rooted in that basic Mafia gameplay.

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Mafia: The Old Country is coming to Xbox Collection X|S in Summer time 2025 and is accessible to want record now on the Microsoft Retailer.