History of Mafia (2002 - 2021) | Documentary

welcome back everyone i'm nick930 and today i want to share with you the complete history of the video game series mafia mr angelo mr salieri sends his regards gentlemen i give you our new friend mafia is a narrative driven action adventure series created by illusion softworks 2k check and most recently hangar 13. in each game players assumed the role of a unique protagonist who was involved in one way or another with the italian mob during the height of its power in the 20th century the series is best known for its well-written narratives and immersive atmosphere and though it's not nearly as well known or financially successful as its more modern sandbox oriented cousin it still occupies a comfortable position in the industry as one of the very best video game interpretations of the classic american gangster film what's more it's also one of the very few video game series that attempts to portray american society in the early 19th century with accurate depictions of classic automobiles weaponry and period-appropriate music so how has this nearly 20 year old franchise changed since its initial 2002 debut and where did it come from in the first place well to answer that properly let's first take a look at what inspired its creation back in the 20th century the year was 1920 the start of the united states enforcement of the controversial 18th amendment that prohibited the creation sale and consumption of alcohol nationwide it was adopted in an attempt to curb the perceived immorality of american society following the influx of foreign immigrants from countries like italy but what it inadvertently gave rise to was one of the most powerful and deadly criminal organizations in the history of the united states la cosa nostra or the mafia benefited immensely from the age of prohibition as they had managed to dominate underground liquor distribution and rapidly accumulated wealth and power what began as just small groups of insignificant street thugs quickly transformed into full-fledged criminal syndicates with their own specialized hierarchy and governing body throughout the decade the american mafia grew to dominate some of the biggest cities in the country with prominent leaders like al capone being viewed as heroes for standing up against the american government but of course as these criminal empires grew so did the violence that encompassed them and high profile incidents like the valentine's day massacre highlighted the grim reality of the criminal underworld forcing the mob to construct stricter rules that would help to keep them under the radar even so criminal activity had exploded into american society outlaws like john dillinger and the notorious barrows gang dominated newspaper headlines and public opinion often swayed in their favor with many idolizing their robin hood-esque misadventures as they rot from banks with drum-fed tommy guns and outran the cops and sleek new age automobiles it soon became so popular that the film industry looked to capitalize on the movement spawning the first in a long run of american gangster films that would greatly romanticize the idea of organized crime this would continue throughout most of the 1930s but as the movie industry faced political pressure to censor content the gangster movie genre fell out of favor and real-life criminal elements like the mafia continued to grow unnoticed by most in 1963 organized crime dominated the headlines once again as the infamous joe valachi testified before congress and publicly revealed for the first time the extent of the american mafia empire what is the name of this organization causing us in italian our our thing and our family in english the testimony was devastating to organize crime marking the beginning of the end for the mafia's reign and simultaneously laid the groundwork for a new era in american cinema around the same time the movie industry was suffering a downfall of its own with producers struggling to compete with the overwhelming popularity of the home television out of desperation the motion pictures association of america reeled back on their stringent production code the headlong limited the creativity of filmmakers and new exciting crime dramas like 1967's bonnie and clyde ushered forth the age of new hollywood and it was with this film especially its powerful ending that would go on to inspire one of the most influential gangster films in cinematic history i'm speaking of course about francis ford coppola's masterpiece the godfather the godfather was a crime drama unlike any that had come before it as it threw out all the old misguided tropes about gangsters and painted a far more realistic portrayal of organized crime in america many aspects of wachi's testimony were incorporated directly into mario puzo's writing making the film a sort of dramatized encyclopedia for how the mob worked but more importantly its unique style and thematic elements would serve as the framework for every piece of gangster-related media that would follow it including martin scorsese's 1990 epic goodfellas with the american gangster genre having been reinvigorated it was only a matter of time before a group of video game developers would decide to incorporate those very same thematic elements into a playable experience an experience that had taken nearly a century of american history to cultivate at the end of the 1980s the political and economic landscape of eastern europe underwent a drastic transformation i mentioned briefly last month how the emergence of liberal capitalism in poland gave rise to one of the most successful video game development studios in the country but this was not an isolated incident in fact something remarkably similar happened just south of poland in former czechoslovakia where the velvet revolution dismantled their own communist government and allowed for the adoption of a more open social market economy it was around the same time that a young peter vocelska had begun his own trading company centered around the distribution of imported content like books samplers and of course video games it was a minor operation but still a relatively successful one thanks to the rapidly growing interest in gaming and with the help of a private banking firm peter decided to expand his business model founding the game development studio illusion softworks in 1997. illusion softwork studio was small at first with roughly five employees working in a single office space in bruno right next door to jarrett kohler's teradon studio early work consisted of building small point-and-click adventures and 2d turn-based strategy titles as they were cheap and easy to make but as this style of game fell out of favor with international audiences bochoska decided to reach out to western publishers to help finance more ambitious large-scale projects and signed a deal with take two interactive with the western publisher now on board the team at illusion softworks hit the ground running with their first major release hidden in dangerous in 1999. it was both a critical and commercial success that was praised for its realism and intense multiplayer though because it was overshadowed by the groundbreaking success of redstorm's rainbow six it never did receive the same widespread recognition for its contributions to the tactical shooter genre after hidden in dangerous illusion softwork saw continual growth in its employee numbers with many talented rookie developers being signed on to work on new projects at the studio including a sequel to hidden and dangerous an aerial combat game built in tandem with their neighbors at teradon and most notable of all a brand new fully 3d narrative driven experience that would eventually become mafia [Music] according to roman hawadik one of the only five developers initially assigned this project they first tried to build a new fantasy rpg but after a disappointing trade show debut they decided to go in a different direction and build a game that they themselves would be more interested in playing there were a few good ideas tossed around many of which would have been safe choices at the time but one suggestion really resonated with them all a game based around the classic american gangster it was a home run in every sense nobody had really attempted it before at least not in the scale that they were planning early drafts allegedly featured a playable police officer facing off against the mob during the 1920s but when daniel vavre was given control of the script things took a drastic turn dan first joined up with illusion softworks during the creation of hidden and dangerous where he worked as a texture artist in the late stages of the game's development it was his idea to pursue the heavily narrative driven plot structure for illusion's next big game citing the success of metal gear solid and recognizing that as the eventual next step for the gaming industry his foresight soon proved to be invaluable over the course of the next few years as he contributed to one of the most well-respected narratives in the history of gaming according to past interviews daniel's early goal for the game script was to pay homage to classic films like godfather and goodfellas by incorporating a lot of the same narrative structure and even some familiar sequences throughout christ no no no hey stop but unlike those films the story for a video game would have to maintain a player's attention for much longer requiring hundreds of pages of original concepts and ideas to be written what's more vavra's script was rewriting the norms for what a story could be within a video game rather than just throwing together dialogue to bookend mindless action mafia story was written first and would greatly define the pacing of the gameplay it also presented a much darker mature tone than most games around that same time video games back then typically didn't go this route especially not action-adventure games based on crime out of fear that it would draw too much negative press but vavra felt that in order to tell his story properly they would need to push the boundaries of the medium and avoid the pitfalls of games like grand theft auto that in its earliest days leaned too heavily into its comedic sandbox style meanwhile the development team steadily grew to account for the growing scope of the project expanding to 25 employees within the first year of development as vavr penned the script the programming and graphic design team struggled to put together a playable space to work with they initially tried to use the old hidden and dangerous engine but found it ineffective in providing dense open-ended environments so they instead adopted the ls3d engine that fuchoska had recently acquired from a small studio in prague this new engine was much more advanced allowing the developers to really go all in in building a truly immersive open world experience they started with basic level geometry then populated it with simplistic building meshes and then textured them with scans of pictures they had captured with an old camera but this proved to be a tedious process and they invested in a newer digital camera to help import textures even more easily they also introduced state-of-the-art physics effects to make the world behave as realistically as possible with extra care being given to the driving models to ensure each vehicle behaved appropriately the combat was also an extremely important factor that the development team spent a lot of time fine-tuning because of the positive response they received from their hidden and dangerous series they valued realism above all else and so they carefully balanced each firearm so that they handled as authentically as possible they even limited the number of enemies that the player fights at any given moment as they felt this would give the combat a more believable feel to deliver the desired emotional effect from the game's ambitious narrative the animation team utilized motion capture technology to record many of the game's animations especially those seen in the cinematic sequences and even hired several high-profile voice actors to play the characters including a cast member from the hit crime drama the sopranos mr salieri wants you to know that he is very grateful to you for the most part development went smoothly with the team hitting most of their deadlines but as the project entered its fifth year it soon became clear that they would need to scale back on some of their planned material and even dropped a planned online multiplayer mode they would have seen large groups of players battle it out across the city finally after years of development and mounting anticipation elusion softworks released their groundbreaking interactive crime drama mafia exclusively for the pc mafia takes place throughout the course of the 1930s in a fictional city called lost heaven that is a sort of amalgamation of many different american cities during that same era like with its real-life inspiration lost heaven's ban on alcohol has led to an influx of criminal activity throughout the city with the most powerful organizations the morello family and the salieri family desperately fighting each other for control of rockets like the bootleg trade players assume the role of a young cab driver named tommy angelo who one night finds himself caught in the middle of the family rivalry when a pair of salieri's men force him to help them escape a squad of mirella's goons tommy being a skilled driver successfully evades the attackers and has offered both payment and a job opportunity to work for salieri conflicted tommy decides to ignore the job offer but after his cab is destroyed by morella slugs the next day he has a change of heart and requests salieri's help in getting revenge what do they call you son thomas angelo i've decided to give you a shot tommy i like new faces from here tommy is welcomed into the family and is introduced to a cast of colorful characters including his friends paulie and sam frank the consigliere and bookkeeper and of course don salieri himself whose appearance and general personality is nearly identical to that of paulie from the film goodfellas in fact many of mafia's characters borrow substantially from the likes of scorsese's masterpiece tommy paulie and sam are pretty much exactly like the portrayals of henry hill tommy devito and jimmy conway respectively and even occupy the same roles throughout the course of the game's plot after saddling up with salieri's crew tommy and the gang are sent to perform many not so honest jobs across the city like collecting protection payments smuggling in bootleg hooch and even pulling off hit jobs on high value targets but things continue to get increasingly more complicated as morello inches further into salieri's turf and the two gangs frequently come to head in bloody firefights and car chases ultimately triggering an all-out war between the families all the while tommy is consistently pushed to overstep his limits and finds himself struggling to balance his loyalty with his own you can't feel morals for these animals they shoot you in the back the first opportunity you get like with the characters the general themes explored throughout the course of the game story will be familiar to fans of classic gangster movies with the criminal life seeming glamorous and exciting at first only to catastrophically collapse by the end but to offer this type of narrative structure to gamer audiences was unprecedented at the time and its finale is still one of the more compelling conclusions to a story in the medium to help deliver this ambitious story mafia's gameplay is designed in a way that retains the player's focus on the narrative it provides highly immersive gameplay mechanics to complement its direction players maintain control of tommy exclusively throughout the course of the campaign and must complete a series of objectives in each of the game's 22 or so chapters mission objectives typically involve players driving from point to point across the city killing some enemies and returning home though aside from that very basic structure no two missions ever feel the same and the excellent pacing keeps the experience engaging even some 20 years after it's been released players start each chapter at salieri's restaurant and are given a quick rundown on what they're being asked to do you'll do the driving paulie and sam will do the collecting it'll be routine they can then go out back and talk to a mechanic named ralphie who will teach the player how to pick the locks of a new car and similarly you can visit the gunsmith vincenzo to pick up a predetermined loadout that like ralphie's cars get progressively more and more powerful as the game progresses once players are all geared up they're free to drive out into the open world where the game's driving mechanics and dynamic police simulation system come into play much like the popular grand theft auto series mafia employs a tiered wanted system based on actions performed by the player driving too fast or running a red light for example will trigger any cops watching to chase the player down and issue a ticket but performing more heinous acts like hurting a pedestrian or brandishing a firearm will cause the police to try and arrest the player or even open fire if necessary it's a robust system that surprisingly still rivals similar wanted level scripts used today as situations can often be defused peacefully if the player responds accordingly what's more the cops in this game won't act as automatic relays sending out magic signals to every cop in town when they're attacked so luring a group of officers to a secluded area before attacking can be a valid tactic and can even reset the player's wanted status and this is important because trying to escape the cops the old fashioned way may be difficult for some due to the way the game handles its driving mechanics driving in mafia can be extremely difficult as the vehicles are all designed to behave just like their real-life counterparts making fishtailing and spin-outs even more common vehicles even feature realistic damage models that include both visible exterior damage and internal components that can be damaged by collisions or gunfire directly impacting the performance of the car in keeping true with the time period mafia also does not include the all too common gps widget in the heads-up display opting instead for a much less informative radar device to indicate to players where cops are located relative to their position though there is still a full screen map that can be toggled to help plan the player's route then of course there's the infamous race sequence this mission is notorious for stopping a player's progression dead in its tracks with a steep requirement to place first in a lengthy 5 lap race using a car that can easily flip off the track with one bad churn but driving is not the only thing that players will need to master in the world of mafia whereas will also spend a great deal of time getting out of their jalopy and blasting enemy mobsters away with an assortment of era appropriate weapons weapons range from knives baseball bats and grenades to firearms like revolvers 1911's thompson submachine guns pump action shotguns and even a bolt action sniper as i mentioned before the firearms in mafia are built to handle somewhat realistically with premature weapon reloads causing the player to drop ammunition on the ground and single shots to the chest or head being more than enough to take down an assailant the player's health is also limited to a classic health bar and any damage received will be saved between checkpoints making some areas extremely challenging if not planned accordingly to minimize damage taken players can roll forward back or to the side but while it does look cool it's also incredibly risky and just waiting for enemies to reload is often a safer option outside of its combat and driving mafia is a straightforward adventure there's a tiny bit of traversal at some points along with some secret stashes to find but players that try to veer off the scripted tracks may find that the city of lost heaven is not all it appears to be there's nothing to actually do in this world save for taking public transit across town or stealing a hot set of wheels and any money that's supposedly being earned by completing jobs is just imaginary as there's no actual need for it in the open world that's where the bonus free ride mode comes in this mode offers players a somewhat more arcadey grand theft auto-esque experience with players being rewarded points represented by cash for performing certain actions actions like killing npcs that look like mobsters driving really fast or blowing up cars money can then be used at specific locations like the hospital to heal up or lucas pertone's garage to repair a vehicle giving players a chance to goof around with all the core mechanics for players looking for more of a challenge there's free ride extreme that features several secret side missions scattered throughout the city that need to be discovered using various hints it's a strangely off-tone and goofy addition to the game but one that helps add to the replay value and is purposely kept separate from the main campaign to preserve its more mature narrative tone overall the original mafia is considered by many to be a masterpiece and one of illusion softworks crowning achievements perfectly blending quality storytelling with a unique and interesting setting while also giving players a slew of authentic vehicles and weapons to truly immerse themselves into the world critics allowed at the game for its realistic vehicle models and physics design and applauded it for taking unexpected risks with its narrative many even compared it to the likes of rockstar's grand theft auto 3 praising illusion softworks for making something more mature and thought-provoking websites like gamespot even celebrated mafia for its musical score that combined licensed musical tracks from artists like django reinhardt with some beautiful original orchestral pieces by vladimir sumenek and the bohemian symphonic orchestra however not everyone was on board with mafia's gritty aesthetic a few criticized the game for being frustrating to play with many pointing fingers at the excessively difficult race sequence in only the fifth chapter others criticized the open world for being empty and lifeless with nothing to do outside of the storyline but despite its faults and its less than stellar console ports that released two years later mafia's reception was still overwhelmingly positive and helped to greatly bolster illusion softworks reputation in the industry they were also selling more than they had ever moved in the past with hundreds of thousands of copies being sold overseas but even so the sales numbers came nowhere close to what the grand theft auto series had started to earn and while the two game series had very different goals in mind this would continue to be a reoccurring trend that 2k would take notice of and one that would continue to impact the future of the mafia series moving forward development for the second mafia game began shortly before the first game had released on consoles once again daniel bavra was tasked with pending the script expanding upon the concepts he had introduced in the first game while also introducing more nuance and original ideas that couldn't be incorporated before including a new setting multiple time periods and a more extensive look at the criminal underworld of the 20th century meanwhile the tech team also had their work cut out for them games in the early 2000s were greatly outpacing the capabilities of their old ls3d engine especially open world competitors like vice city so in hopes of evening the playing field illusion started to build their mafia sequel using criterion's renderware engine instead the very same engine that was being used by rockstar for their newer grand theft auto games in the first year things seemed like they were going smoothly they were building lots of 1950s cars and were already beginning to showcase some improved physics effects but as they were making progress building the necessary assets they were blindsided by electronic arts acquisition of criterion forcing the dev team to cease using the engine and start from scratch only now it was 2004 and any project started at this point would need to be built to release on next-gen platforms meaning the game would require exponentially more manpower and resources to develop around the same time illusion softworks had been experiencing some significant growth they had relocated from their old office building to a much larger space nearby and they hired new producers from the uk to help manage relationships between both publishers and investors the studio was still juggling multiple projects simultaneously like more content for hidden and dangerous but by 2005 management at illusion agreed that the mafia 2 team needed as much help as possible and they began to consolidate their resources now with a bit more support the tech team begun to build the world of mafia 2 using a heavily modified version of the ls3d engine that had been used previously for the hidden and dangerous sequel but because so much of it had to be rewritten to accommodate the more complex development pipeline in the studio it quickly turned into a nightmare scenario with massive portions of the engine being written alongside the game itself this meant that artists and designers were stuck building thousands of different models and environmental assets without even being able to see how they fit together and gameplay designers were forced to deal in theoretics writing hundreds of pages worth of ideas without any way of prototyping them to keep their aspirations in check the team agreed to focus their attention on refining the core tenets of mafia's gameplay loop while also adding in only the most critical new features that would help address the concerns made with their first title like more ways to interact with the game world and its people finally in 2007 the game engine now referred to as illusion had started to enter a usable state the artists could now begin the tedious process of importing their assets and building the game world while other graphical technicians worked to implement revolutionary new visual effects to give the game a proper aaa feel new snow simulation was introduced to accompany the game's introductory chapters advanced physics were incorporated with the help of nvidia's newly acquired physx hardware acceleration and a new high-end motion capture studio allowed for more realistic character interactions both within and outside of the cinematics they even tweaked how they handled the voiceover recordings and hired several unknown actors and had them record their lines within the same room giving conversations a more natural tone the working man's a sucker that's for damn sure you said it while all this was going on take two interactive were gearing up to make a major play in the industry they had acquired several valuable studios worldwide and it also secured extended contracts with developers like irrational games and rockstar then a few years after take 2 had re-branded themselves as just 2k the publisher announced publicly that they had fully acquired the illusion softworks development team and renamed both the brno and prog office into 2k check they also acquired teradon studio as well and had them merge with the bruno office forcing them to cancel an ambitious first person shooter that they were working on this infuriated many of those involved a large bulk of former terradon left soon after and joined a new studio called vacher games who would go on to make silent hill downpour but the few that stayed ended up contributing significantly to mafia 2's development especially jarrett kohler who became a producer shortly after joining the team many at illusion softworks were similarly unhappy with 2k's acquisition including writer and designer daniel vavra who felt that with 2k directly pulling the strings their creative freedom would be stifled and his fears became reality when his proposal for mafia 3 was rejected in 2009 he and several other developers loyal to him left 2k check to open a brand new development studio instead [Music] by 2010 the mafia 2 project had started to come together animators and level designers were finally getting a better picture of how the game would work in motion and planned gameplay mechanics and features were also being tested after years of sitting on paper but with the new production deadline set by 2k approaching fast the team were forced to scrap several planned features and even reworked favre's ending with some of the specially built level environments and characters being allegedly stored for later use in downloadable content then in august of 2010 2k check finally released their long-awaited sequel mafia 2 simultaneously for the pc xbox 360 and playstation 3. mafia 2 kicks off at the height of world war ii with the young italian immigrant vito scaletta being forced into the american military to fight in operation husky but after a minor injury veto is shipped back home to empire bay that like lost heaven before it is a mix of lots of different american cities mainly new york from around that same time period soon after arriving vito was greeted by his childhood friend joe barbaro whose ties with empire-based criminal underworld helped get veto released from his military service earlier welcome comuno frieda like a brother to me now you can start thinking about what you're gonna do next sure grateful for joe's help vito joins up with him as they attempt to rise through the ranks of organized crime but after an informant rats out veto for selling stolen ration stamps vito is subsequently sentenced to 10 years in the federal penitentiary while on the inside vita links up with a man named leo galante the conciliary to the vinci family it was given an in-depth rundown of how the mafia operates in empire bay with leo's help vita was given in early parole and released back onto the city streets in the summer of 1951. where he regroups with joe and proceeds to build his reputation throughout the criminal empire unlike the original game mafia 2's narrative is built to be more fluid and complex it continues to borrow thematic elements from goodfellas but there's also a lot of other influences mixed in as well including once upon a time in america's tragic story of two friends growing up in the life together it's a much more ambitious storyline than the original with more characters a more complex plot and a lot of clever twists along the way but it's not just the story that's been given an update mafitude's gameplay also features a great deal of changes from its combat to its open world [Music] interactivity unlike the original games hipfire and roll combat mafia 2 utilizes a more modernized cover based shooter design with players able to press a button to snap to walls and objects and avoid incoming gunfire this of course makes the hit or miss combat role obsolete so this maneuver is no longer possible an enemies will similarly not stand out in the open as much and take cover when engaging the player mafia 2 also sees the removal of melee weapons like the knife and bat but in its place is a new more streamlined melee combat system with buttons to throw both light and heavy punches block and counter if the player lands enough solid hits they can then trigger a melee finisher which will take their opponent out with a flashy takedown animation to accompany mafia 2's 40s and 50s time period the game's arsenal has also been expanded most of the weapons from the first game return including the 1911 and tommy gun but there's also a mouse or pistol several different types of smgs like the mp40 an m1 garand and in some rare instances a powerful mg-42 machine gun to really tear into the enemy mafia 2 also features significantly more destructibility with its combat almost all the cover can be destroyed in some way with walls chipping apart and glass realistically breaking away players can even target vehicle gas tanks and detonate them instantly with a single shot adding a great new angle to combat that spills out onto the street mafia2 also introduces a large array of new era appropriate cars and trucks and because it's now the 1940s and 1950s these vehicles have much better performance and handling than their 1930s counterparts but for whatever reason the ability to fire weapons from the vehicle's driver's seat has been removed requiring players to either outrun their pursuers with sharp turns and maneuvers or pray that the friendly ai in the car does something useful for once calm down i know what i'm doing these aren't the only things that have been reworked though to improve the game's accessibility mafia 2 also simplifies some of the first game's more hardcore mechanics reloading a weapon for example no longer drops excess ammunition on the ground and the player's heads up display is now equipped with a more helpful gps widget displaying the city map and a route line to the next objective even the game's police have been changed in the first game escaping the police and staying hidden for long enough would cause the cops to completely forget that the crime had ever occurred but mafia 2 adds in a new most wanted system that causes police to remember a player based on their outfit and even remember the license plate of a car that they saw the player driving this guy's a maniac to remove this wanted status players can choose to bribe the police or they can alternatively change their appearance and vehicle making them incognito once more but one of mafia two's biggest improvements is to its open world i interactivity to get some shoes dirty around here unlike the empty streets of lost heaven empire bay offers several different new stores to visit and each one of these stores has a specific purpose in the general gameplay loop gun shops for example can be used to gear up before a difficult mission and replenish ammo clothing shops can be used to change the player's appearance and hide from the cops diners can be used to refill health and even gas stations can be used to refill a vehicle's fuel tank however unnecessary it may be players can even drive a stolen vehicle into a body shop now and freely customize aspects of their vehicle like the paint job engine tuning and wheels and swap out the license plate to confuse the police what's more players can even choose to rob a lot of these stores at gunpoint though they risk being pursued by police or attacked by rival gangsters if they're not careful mafia 2's world while not necessarily as interactive as more conventional open world games adds a great deal to the game's atmosphere and remains to this day one of the most immersive open worlds in the mafia series what the [ __ ] nice ain't it what the hell happened to this place collectively mafia 2 is just bigger and more ambitious in just about every way the game's narrative takes some fantastic risks by telling a less formulaic story and while the combat isn't quite as tight as it could be it still packs a punch making every shootout more memorable than the last when it comes to additional features mafia2 does not see the return of the bonus free ride mode from before though it does offer some additional downloadable content that helps to fill the void the first expansion for mafia 2 titled the betrayal of jimmy puts players in the shoes of a hitman named jimmy who is tasked with completing various odd jobs across the city in this mode missions are a bit more free form with players able to tackle them freely while exploring and performing certain actions like driving at high speeds or landing headshots will abort the player with points that are tracked by an online leader board the second expansion titled jimmy's vendetta builds upon the same concept and concludes jimmy's vengeful tale while also introducing 20 some extra missions to play through mafia 2's final expansion adds to the game's main story and fills in the gaps of joe's adventures during veto's incarceration joe's adventures also features a ton of new content for the game including new clothes a new car and several new environments throughout the course of its main missions overall mafia 2 only managed to be a moderate success it received ok reviews from most outlets with many praising the game for its gorgeous visual presentation and fantastic writing it even set a guinness world record for the most profanity ever used in a video game at the time what duff is wrong with you but reviewers really latched on to the quality of its open world complaining about its linearity with nothing to do around empire bay others complained about the game's cut content calling out 2k check for removing features and environments and then using them later in paid downloadable content even harsher reviews criticized the game for its overly repetitive structure especially pertaining to its lengthy driving sequences but the fans of the series felt differently mafia 2 today is revered almost as much as the original game with user reviews for the original pc version on steam being 94 positive players love the brotherhood angle between vito and joe along with the extreme attention to detail that went into empire bay and commended mafia 2 for its nicely aged visual design though despite being popular with fans mafia 2 still failed to meet the publisher's expectations and the game's development had far exceeded its initial budget and the sales numbers failed to meet the exceedingly high expectations leaving the future of the mafia series in a precarious state following mafia 2's disappointing performance take two started to clean house with a major round of layoffs in their check offices several veteran mafia developers were encouraged to move on and the future of mafia seemed increasingly grim especially when considering 2k already had other popular open world action adventure series that were hugely outpacing it but surprisingly mafia was not ready to lay down in the dirt just yet the developers that remained were still confident that they could deliver another hit for the series and preliminary writers for a new mafia project began to adopt portions of daniel vavrez rejected proposal including an extension to vito scaletta's story along with many locations from past games according to a postmortem interview with avra mafia 3's original concept the one that 2k had turned down would have featured two playable protagonists a detective and a gangster that the game would continually swap between throughout the course of the story players would perform some nefarious act as the gangster like robbing a bank and then take control of the detective trying to piece together what had just happened but for whatever reason the pitch just didn't click between 2k and vabra and when he left only fragments of his expansive third chapter were left over throughout the course of 2012 the czech offices attempted to hire new employees in hopes of getting the project back onto its feet but creative differences regarding the game's fractured story slowed down production causing the project to be restarted upwards of seven times disappointed with the lack of any forward motion take two decided that enough was enough and quietly opened a new production studio in nevada california they then tapped rod ferguson to take over as the project's director which makes sense considering he had just fixed bioshock infinite's messy development only a few months before but even ferguson couldn't make sense of what was happening with mafia 3 and he left almost immediately replacing him was hayden blackman an ex-lucas arts writer and director from the force unleash projects whose interest in story aligned nicely with what the mafia series demanded with blackman now in charge 2k's new nevada studio began hiring rookie developers in the bay area hoping that fresh faces might revitalize the property 2k also made sure that the developers were not stuck building the graphics architecture in tandem with the game again and so they had the prague office send over the code for the illusion engine to give the team a stronger start only this actually ended up making things more difficult the engine was already starting to show its age and it required a lot of extra work in order for any game built with it to pass as next gen what's more a lot of the programming comments were written in check making debugging a confusing and tedious process but even so the team eventually were able to rework the illusion engine into something serviceable and threw in several advanced visual techniques to suit their purposes like a new texture streaming system and lighting models to allow for a dynamic time of day meanwhile blackman along with lead writer william harms work to piece together the game's long debated storyline their first challenge was identifying a suitable location for the game to take place they tossed around a few ideas like miami and los angeles along with some returning locations like lost heaven and empire bay but they ultimately settled on the unique bayous of louisiana after being sold on the idea while watching films that took place there next they had to come up with a protagonist they looked back at characters like tommy and vito to determine why they work so well for their respective games and identify that each character was a victim of their own time tommy for example was a broke cab driver driven to crime by a devastated economy and vito was a fresh italian immigrant and a world war ii veteran with nothing left to lose by the end so when they thought of what kind of person would tell the most compelling story in a 1968 new orleans an african-american vietnam vet became the obvious choice this of course was a big step for both the series and the gaming industry as a whole as the civil rights movement had never really been explored in this capacity especially not for entertainment purposes so while they still wanted to ensure their game world would continue to be as authentic as possible they also wanted to avoid making any sort of controversial political statements that could be tied to ongoing racial inequality and agreed to focus most of the game's plot around his personal vendetta with the mob with this core concept now settled upon arms blackman and about seven other writers spent a week in a conference room going through the game's general structure which had the player systematically dismantling the mob from the ground up by disrupting various criminal rackets and then killing the men in charge the entire game would also offer an unprecedented level of choice for the series with players capable of approaching different mob bosses in any way they saw fit including attacking territory leaders in their heavily fortified strongholds before ever attempting to disrupt their rackets as this new direction for the series started to take shape it became increasingly more clear that 2k checks time with the mafia series was coming to an end work on the old versions of mafia 3 had amounted to practically nothing and a lot of employees were left without any work to do so 2k made the decision to close down the prague office for good transitioning a few of the veteran developers over to the new nebado office others were relocated to the old brno studio to work as support but most were asked to leave with some joining up with dan vavra's new independent development team shortly after following this massive restructuring take two finally broke the silence to the public and announced the formation of its new hangar 13 development studio but word on what they were actually working on remained a mystery there were some job postings that got out that hinted at a new open world action adventure game but fans were otherwise left to guess by the end of 2014 full development for mafia 3 was finally underway with a combination of veteran check developers now working side by side with the rookie artists and designers in novato but instead of resetting the clock 2k gave blackman and his team a little under 2 years to release a finished game putting extreme pressure on everyone involved with such a short time frame any problematic design decisions not caught early on were impossible to fix later forcing team leaders to be extremely conservative when it came to suggested changes one key gameplay mechanic in particular continued to be a concern for the designers and testers where the structural format of the damage system felt annoyingly repetitive and needlessly locked players out of the story but because the problem involved such a fundamental part of the game the managers opted to leave it the way it was in hopes that it would probably come together by the time the game was finished finally after years of trouble development take two formally announced with a teaser the latest entry to the mafia series revealing the new setting and protagonist and a year later hangar 13 released their first game mafia 3 for the pc ps4 and xbox one the third entry to the mafia series takes place in the tumultuous late 1960s with america fighting a war in vietnam while simultaneously dealing with civil unrest boiling over from centuries of racial discrimination as with the past two games mafia 3 features a fictional interpretation of an american city called new bordeaux based on 1960s new orleans the players assumed the role of a vietnam war veteran lincoln clay whose traumatic time in southeast asia has left him hollow and unsure of what he wants in life upon returning home he's greeted by his adopted brother and father who together run a small criminal outfit called the black mob and revealed to lincoln that they owe a large amount of back payment to the local mafia concern for the well-being of his family lincoln strikes a deal with don marcano and agrees to participate in a major heist that would more than settle the debt but after pulling it off the marcano family betrays everyone involved stealing the money and leaving lincoln for dead but miraculously lincoln manages to pull through with the bullet to his head having only grace's skull and after recovering lincoln promises to get his revenge but he also knows he can't do it alone so he partners up with cia agent john donovan and together they establish an elaborate plan to not only kill marcano but prevent anyone else from taking his place this means dismantling marcano's criminal empire from the bottom up disrupting every racket killing every associate capo and underboss and finally only when everything else is burned to the ground or kano himself and to keep markhanna from retaking any lost ground lincoln also enlists the aid of past rival gang leaders including the head of the haitian mob cassandra the head of the irish mob thomas burke and returning fan favorite vida scaletta who was sent to new bordeaux by the mafia after the events of the pass game after being united this ragtag criminal outfit band together to tear down new bordeaux's mafia enterprise burning down all of marcano's rackets and gutting anyone that gets in their way and all the while lincoln's morals are tested in this relentless pursuit of vengeance in a departure from the past two games mafia 3 offers a bit of player choice with its narrative letting players decide who to go after first and who gets control of the city afterwards with specific endings depending on how well the relationships are balanced that's what i'm talking about mafia 3 also breaks tradition by not being based as strongly around any particular mafia film but instead takes several cues from marvel's comic book character the punisher though most of mafia 3's tale of revenge still feels remarkably unique pulling from real world historical events to help ground it all and giving players a chance to sympathize even more with its character coffee 3 just strikes a different chord than the other entries and rather than glamorizing the mob life it immediately highlights just how brutally dark and reprehensible the criminal underworld can be though while its story and atmosphere are certainly interesting the same can't be said about mafia 3's gameplay design to address past complaints about mafia's over-reliance on linear scripted gameplay mafia 3 leans heavily into using its open world to deliver its experience with missions scattered all throughout the city that can be tackled in any order the player wants after a set of scripted introductory missions players are let off the leash to pursue their vengeance against the marcano family to do this players must first speak with an informant marked on the map which will then reveal several racket damage objectives nearby these objectives are typically very simple and often involve destroying some type of property or killing a key target and if enough of these are completed the player will then unlock a chance to take down the leader of the racket itself of course this exact process is then repeated for all the other rackets within the same district until eventually a major story mission is unlocked giving players a chance to take down a critical target and progress the story further it makes sense in the context of the story but unfortunately this same process is repeated throughout the entirety of the game with players having to constantly complete mundane racket damage objectives just to see what happens next and it ultimately stretches what could have been a decent 8 hour story experience into a repetitive 18 hour grind on the bright side mafia 3's core gameplay mechanics and features do help to make this grind a bit more tolerable like with mafia 2 mafia 3 utilizes a cover based shooter design allowing the player to snap to cover in round corners seamlessly but players can also blind fire their weapons now giving them a chance to shoot back safely with less accuracy mafia 3 also removes the magic pockets from the first two games meaning players can now only hold two guns at a time and we'll need to carefully select the right tool for the job we'll all get a piece also because mafia 3's protagonist is a vietnam war vet his combat techniques are more brutal and gruesome than anything we've seen in the series before lincoln can obliterate enemies with his bowie knife and close quarter combat skills but he's also skilled with a number of new age firearms like silenced handguns sniper rifles assault rifles shotguns and even a devastating m60 light machine gun the lincoln can wield rambo 2 style another big part of mafia 3 that wasn't quite as prevalent in the past games is stealth action in keeping true with mafia 3's player choice style almost every mission can now be approached stealthily if the player wants enemies now utilize a more conventional alert system based on the duration that the player remains in their cone of vision and if they're careful enough entire rackets can be cleared out without anyone ever knowing mafia 3 also simplifies the way its open world functions and does away with things like needing to visit storefronts for specific resources health for example is now refilled using health syringes found in wall mounted boxes and stocked on the player's person to be used whenever they want gun stores similarly no longer exist though players can use their criminal connections to request a new gun van to show up on the street closest to them and can use earned money to purchase any weapon they want and even purchase a large assortment of permanent upgrades as well in keeping true with mafia 3's new territory control system players are also awarded special services and gear depending on who they support throughout the game giving more territory to veto for example will earn players the ability to request in a squad of ai-controlled becca that will proceed to shoot any enemies nearby alternatively helping burke will earn players the ability to call the cops off at any given moment need help getting away from the pigs and tickfall gotcha or even churn a blind eye to any future crimes the player wants to commit other services include a conciliary cash drop-off that will safely store any cash that the player has on their person and a vehicle delivery service that can spawn any card that the player has driven before other changes include the ability to tap into telephone boxes to track enemies through walls a new crowbar mini-game to break open locks to doors and a major rework to how the police work with civilian witnesses that if not stopped will trigger an instant police search and cops that will shoot first and ask questions never it's a major departure from the design of the gameplay in the first two games favoring its open world gameplay to the more linear structured style of the past and while it has its moments its grinding nature is almost impossible to ignore mafia 3 was a critical disaster reviewers panned the game for successively repetitive gameplay pointing out flaws in just about every aspect of its design to make matters worse mafia 3 also suffered from a multitude of technical issues with major artificial intelligence bugs and visual glitches that still persist to this day what's more the graphics were a major step back with muddy textures low poly npc models unrealistic lighting and utterly broken physics even the pc version at release was stuck locked at 30fps with players need to manually edit configuration files just to keep it from crashing the only saving grace for it all was its story mafia 3's brilliantly written story coupled with its fantastic motion and voice capture performances delivered such a captivating plot that players were willing to wade through the broken repetitive swamps just to see it through the game was even held up for being culturally significant not only placing a black male protagonist into a star role of a video game but also respectfully recreating an era of history for players to experience first hand this shop's whites only boy stick around i'll let the police deal with you when the dust had settled it was clear to everyone that while mafia 3 may have had something meaningful to say it just wasn't ready for its release all of the cut corners that had to be made in order for the team to meet deadlines cost the game dearly though because of the strong marketing campaign and great promotions it did at least succeed in being the fastest selling entry in the series likely convincing 2k that it was still an ip worth keeping around to make it up to the fans studio head blackman and the rest of the team at hangar 13 spent the remainder of 2016 addressing the biggest technical concerns plaguing the game and delivered several free content drops like new cars outfits and activities as well then in 2017 they released three paid expansions each offering new environments to explore along with several new story missions but by the time the final dlc had dropped mafia 3's reputation was set in stone and it would carry on as the lowest rated entry in the series to date following mafia 3's catastrophic critical failure hangar 13 experienced a massive fallout artists tech directors designers and more sought new jobs elsewhere including next door where supposedly a new bioshock was being made but a few did stick around in hangar 13 eager to learn from mistakes made and build something better they initially wanted to build a fourth mafia game set in 1970s las vegas and based heavily around one of scorsese's other classic gangster flicks casino but when blackman pitched the idea to executives at 2k he was given a counteroffer to make a completely brand new ip instead an offer that he just couldn't refuse while a few people in hangar 13 may have been disappointed others were optimistic a new ip meant a fresh start and the team immediately began to pitch ideas for a clever new open world spy thrower set during the 1980s it was given the working title rhapsody and would have had players completing stealth missions in west and east berlin using a series of era appropriate gadgets but as development proceeded the game transformed into something else entirely with a new superhero protagonist flying around san francisco using music to defeat his enemies the project predictably collapsed around them with a few developers even landing new deals to work at the secret bioshock project next door but most of the developers at hangar 13 were shown the door as 2k began several rounds of major layoffs citing the failure of mafia 3 and cancellation of rhapsody as the key reasons for the decision hangar 13 would become a shell of its former self with some members even being relocated back to the brno office in the czech republic then about a month or so after they had wrapped up their work on mafia 3's updates and extra content veteran members of the original mafia game approached studio lead black men and suggested taking everything they had learned so far to remake the original classic from the ground up blackman loved the idea and after a green light from 2k the team got to work they studied all the aspects of the original game to figure out what made it so special they also took careful notes of aspects that could be improved including the game's narrative and gameplay mechanics with the narrative they knew early on that they wanted to keep the story as close as possible to the original material all the characters would need to return and all the same missions and plot points would need to be executed in more or less the same way but the old cinematic camera angles and voice acting performances just wouldn't cut it for a trip away game so they went out of their way to hire new talent to perform the iconic roles and even expanded upon some characters that had smaller roles before with the gameplay hangar 13 took the core mechanics from mafia 3 like the driving and shooting systems and reworked them to feel more consistent with the style of the original game this meant higher lethality more realistic handling and a return to a linear structure but they did throw in some new quality of life improvements as well like new difficulty options for players to fine tune their experience by 2020 hangar 13 were far in production and prepared to showcase their exciting new project at e3 but they were suddenly faced with the reality of the pandemic and forced to make a number of changes to their launch schedule and instead announced the game online as part of a new bundled remastered collection finally in september of 2020 hangar 13 released mafia definitive edition for pc ps4 and xbox one mafia definitive edition being as it is a remake tells almost the exact same story as the original game players still follow tommy angelo on his journey with the salieri crew as they battle it out with morella during the 1930s only to make the experience feel more cinematic and fresh hanger 13 did make a few big changes to the game's dialogue and character roles sarah for example tommy's romantic interest throughout the story is given a few more lines of dialogue and is used to help highlight tommy's struggle to leave behind the life before it's too late tommy's friends paulie and sam are also updated and deliver more of a back and forth throughout each mission to expand upon their friendship some of the changes even impact the tone of the original story as mentioned by the original writer daniel vavra but it otherwise delivers mostly the same hard-hitting narrative punches from before with a slightly more modern twist from mr salieri the gameplay on the other hand features even more changes most of which i've already covered in detail with my direct comparison video last year since it's all built off mafia 3's engine several of the core movement controls and abilities function the same way players can take cover blind fire and engage in hand-to-hand combat though it's also trying to keep true to the original so the lethality of bullets are increased ammunition is more limited and all of mafia 3's open world activities and other lincoln clay specific options have been left behind only the bare minimum has been carried over ensuring that the game plays just like the original only with more modern amenities the driving model for example is much simpler and easier to control with things like an auto lock system when shooting firearms to make it more approachable and the infamous racing mission has had its difficulty greatly reduced so much so that four ai racers always crash off the track each time the definitive edition also adds in a few brand new features like motorbikes to drive the ability to change clothes and collectible cigarette cards similar to the playboy magazines from the past two games it's a much more modernized experience that feels more in line with both mafia 2 and mafia 3. and while die hard fans of the original may be disappointed with the removal of some features it's mostly a faithful recreation the mafia definitive edition was met with glowing praise from audiences many applauded the game for its gorgeous visual design others complemented it for its fantastic acting and character performances that helped to build on an already stellar story but of course fans of the original did note some common concerns mainly the lack of side missions from lucas bertone and the removal of public transportation options dan vavra himself even knocked the remake for its subtle changes to the script claiming that it took away from many of the messages that he was trying to convey initially though he was still impressed by the beautiful visual design that helped bring his original vision into the modern era with the success of mafia definitive edition the future finally looks a bit brighter for this criminally underrated classic what started off as a passion project from a small team in the czech republic has finally blossomed into a well-recognized and respected video game franchise with arguably some of the best storytelling in the entire industry the series is of course not without its missteps mafia 2 while a solid entry never could deliver on its ambitious promises and mafia 3's development process was such a disaster that it's remarkable it even managed to get released even the wildly popular remake of the original mafia has been criticized for its changes but regardless mafia has continuously pushed the boundaries for the video game industry largely unnoticed by most with powerful narratives immersive worlds and some brilliant visual effects not much is known at this point regarding the future of mafia some leaks suggest that the pitched 1970s casino version of mafia 4 could still very well be in development and may even be announced sometime this year but with the remake having just come out and a supposed new ip being worked on by hangar 13 it's difficult to really say what's in store next but either way if the success of the last entry to the series is any indication of where the series is headed i think it's safe to say that mafia is here to stay for a long time but what do you guys think which mafia game was your favorite where do you think the series should go next let me know in the comment section i also wanted to give a special shout out to my supporters on patreon whose support has helped significantly in making this video including paul cerami corey phillips b-man uriel tomsoff and chad trattwine thank you so much for your continued support if you enjoy the work i do here and want to see more documentaries like this please consider joining the growing list of patreon supporters where you can get early access to new projects behind the scenes content shoutouts and access to our private discord to chat and play games your support is hugely appreciated and of course don't forget to like and subscribe for more documentaries posted every month [Music] you

Channel: Nick930

Views: 220,452

Rating: 4.9502993 out of 5

Keywords: Mafia, Mafia II, Mafia 2, Definitive Edition, Remaster, Remastered, Remake, Comparison, Side-by-side, Gameplay, Graphics, Ultra, PC, Direct, Lighting, PhysX, Ray Tracing, RTX, Texture, Effects, Difference, Contrast, Nick930, Visual, Vito, Gang, Mob, WWII, WW2, Empire Bay, Joe, Beta, Sound, Environment, Xbox, PlayStation, PS4Pro, Review, Analysis, Digital Foundry, Documentary, History, Rise and Fall, Tommy Gun, Tommy Angelo, Vito Scaletta, Lincoln Clay, Gangster, Godfather, Goodfellas, Wise Guys

Id: gm9nI1kB9lg

Length: 62min 16sec (3736 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DurangoCZ97]

This video was so nice. Too bad it doesn’t have as many views, considering Nick930 has 300k subscribers.