Mafia, is it?

 

You know, I figured it was weirdly out of the blue that Xbox decided now of all times to throw up the remake of the original Mafia game on Gamepass entirely by it's lonesome. At least do the set, right? But following the Gamescon event and the reveal of the impending new Mafia game on our doorsteps I suppose that was what we call a strategic move. And arguably the first sensible strategic move that Xbox has made all year whilst it swirls around the drain waiting to be sucked down it all. But enough about Xbox, that's not what this is about- I want to talk for a little bit about the underrated franchise known as Mafia- and why it might have actually deserved it's underrated reputation at times whilst absolutely not at others. Sound confusing? We're going in.

So I first came to Mafia the same way that a lot of people my age did- by seeing the free demo for Mafia 2 on the Xbox and playing it to death. This was back when these styles of crime games were all informed by Grand Theft Auto so most of us that were unfamiliar with Mafia 1 just assumed that was exactly what was in store with this game. Open world shenanigans only themed in the 1950's which sounded absolutely awesome to my ears. Couple that with the (for the time) insane graphics that pulled off such craziness as destructible cover! (In a third person game? That was insane!) And we all thought someone was rising to the opportunity to fill the vast void since the last decent Grand Theft Auto. Of course we were naïve, that wasn't what Mafia was and many found it to be disappointing within my age group. I didn't.

I found Mafia 2 to be a compelling narrative based story through the life of an endearing mafioso and his trusty friend as they basically lived out the entirety of that prologue section from Cyberpunk that they shrunk down into a montage right at the beginning- you know, the one where all your friendship with Jackie was presumably supposed to blossom and flourish? In hindsight the game kind of feels like an unofficial adaptation of Goodfellas in parts- but that is no indictment- Goodfellas is a stellar movie! And it takes a lot of gal for a game released at any point to take the pace the narrative needs. It's not afraid to be slow- even boring when it wants to- there's a tale of an entire life of choices and criminality and consequence being explored here. Mafia 2 pulled off a core narrative that really put a lot of contemporaries to shame and I'd argue is an emotional match to some of the best of today. I'd put it just a single rung below the heavy hitters. Maybe a couple more rungs if we take into account the fiddly combat.

It's Mafia 2's example which I think the majority of the fanbase for this franchise leans on, given that Mafia 3 decided to harpoon a lot of that style in favour of going Ubisoft open world. Sacrificing the tightly woven, impeccably based narrative into formulaic objective-based checklisting through which poignant narrative set-pieces desperately struggled to shine. What Mafia 3 achieved in narrative is commendable only for it's existence in an environment seemingly tailer-built to stifle it. Still, it must be some testament to the quality of Mafia 2 that I still held out some hope that something good would come out the franchise.

As for Mafia's Definitive Edition remake- I'm trying to get through it but it hasn't aged all that well in really any regard. It's graphically rather out-of-step, the gameplay is pretty mediocre and the characters are so forgettable I genuinely can't even remember their names let alone tell one apart in a conversation without subtitle indicators. (I think one of them is called 'Paulie', but that's as much stereotyping as it is genuine staying power in the writer.)  Mafia 2 really is the shining beacon of what this franchise could represent in the gaming space- high quality narrative driven faux-historical epics- if they'll only capitalise on that. Except- I guess they can't given that Mafia 3 pretty much took place in the tail end of the age of the Mafia. Even Yakuza had to eventually move on from the Yakuza- but Mafia doesn't really have that staying power...

Oh, but what do you do when you've run out of room to tell your historical fiction franchise? You go backwards of course! Thus is the philosophy that is spawning 'The Old Country' which goes in a somewhat unprecedented direction of taking gamers to Sicily for the first time in any Mafia-starring video game ever. Okay, almost ever- Mafia 2 begins during World War 2 in Sicily- but you get what I'm saying: we've never gotten to experience this culture despite how important it ostensibly is to the veneer of organised crime. Taking us here is indication enough that we're going to do something distinctly different, which is what made Mafia so very interesting before 3 bungled that up by going trend chasing. (The bane of all franchises, it would seem.)

Of course the game has already had it's first controversy where someone trolled the Steam languages and found no listing for Italian and kicked up a stink about it. Hanger 13 have thus clarified that the game will actually feature Sicilian voice acting because- duh. Also apparently there is going to be Italian localisation- but that wasn't what people were upset about. Trust me, the Internet doesn't start kicking up a fuss because an underrepresented portion of the player base won't be getting dubbing. Hopefully this means the English version of the game will have linguistically authentic performances and I won't be stuck with an 'Infinite Wealth' situation of missing all the celebrity voice actors and genuine English speakers speaking English lines because I like the Japanese voices.  

But the point is that Hanger 13 seems to have gotten the message. By all accounts they really want to go back to what makes Mafia special and not what makes Ubisoft money, because they'd never win in that battle anyway. Which might mean we get that proper follow up that Mafia 2 has been waiting oh so long for and I'll be honest in my genuine excitement. There's something I haven't seen before wrapped up in a package I haven't seen enough of- for me that's the perfect formula for reviving a franchise I wasn't sure was going to get another outing.