Mafia: Definitive Edition Remake: Updated Plot, City, Gameplay and Other Features Revealed

The Mafia remake, called Mafia: Definitive Edition, is scheduled for August 28. We were presented with a story trailer earlier this month, but no gameplay has been seen yet. There has not been much info until now.

On Tuesday, Hangar 13’s president and senior creative director Haden Blackman gave an in-depth interview to USgamer and revealed a lot of details about Mafia: Definitive Edition. Here are the key points:

Story

The plot will reveal the stories of the friends and family of Tommy Angelo in detail. Among the characters who will get more screen time are Tommy’s girlfriend Sarah and friends Paulie and Sam.

According to Blackman, Sarah is the reason for many of Tommy’s actions in the original game although she appears rarely. In the Definitive Edition, she will be paid with much more attention. She will work in her father’s bar. Sarah is not a part of the mob, but she knows how the criminal organization works.

The missions in the Definitive Edition are redesigned in order to immerse players in a war between the criminal families of Salieri and Morello. According to Blackman, they are reworked carefully, adding set pieces and content to missions only where they would not alter the story.

Movies from the 1920s and 1930s — the same period when Mafia’s action takes place — were chosen as a reference point for cutscene direction. The first two parts of The Godfather trilogy were also influences.

Tomáš Hřebíček, lead animator of the original Mafia, directed all the cinematics.

Gameplay

Blackman admits that Mafia III had problems with monotonous tasks: many actions had to be repeated over and over again. In Mafia: Definitive Edition, excessive repetitiveness was avoided by all means.

The gameplay won’t follow the original ideas meticulously: Hangar 13 is going to offer difficulty settings. For example, it is possible to include realistic driving and more aggressive police, which are sensitive to violations. Together, this should give you an impression closer to the original. Or you can reduce the number of gaming difficulties just to immerse yourself in the story.

Lincoln Clay from Mafia III is ex-military and Tommy is just a taxi driver. Hangar 13 will try to reflect it in the gameplay: Tommy can withstand fewer hits in shootings.

According to the comments of Blackman, the player will be given quite a few bullets.

There’s a system of hideouts.

Motorcycles will appear — they weren’t in the original games.

City

When Hangar 13 created New Bordeaux for Mafia III, the team used a principle: a player must always see something interesting when he turns 60 degrees. Lost Heaven in Mafia: Definitive Edition is remade the same way.

In Mafia III, there was a division into districts: in poor black neighborhoods, the police response was slower than in rich white neighborhoods. This system fit well with the gameplay and simultaneously emphasized the problems of racism that were raised in the story. In Mafia: Definitive Edition, there will be no similar system because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

Development

The idea of a remake of Mafia began to be discussed three months after the release of the last DLC for Mafia III.

For a long time the remake team was very small and they were dealing with the basis of the game. This small team consisted of people who were working on the original Mafia.

Full-scale production with a large team started around the beginning of 2019.

Production at Hangar 13 was set up in such a way that it would be possible to move things from project to project. In the case of Mafia: Definitive Edition, this will train a team of specialists, who will take on the next big game in the studio.

Blackman says that Hangar 13 is creating several projects at once. The development of Mafia: Definitive Edition went well because there was already a rough plan in the form of the original game.

Hangar 13 has experienced a strained relationship with its audience: the updated versions of Mafia II and Mafia III have run into a number of technical problems. According to Blackman, the studio is working hard to make the Mafia remake a great game that the audience will truly enjoy.