MAFIA, one of the best video games of all time, is getting a full remake this year

In highly surprisingly but welcome news, Take Two have confirmed that their classic 2002 video game Mafia has been completely remade for modern PCs and consoles and will be released in August. More modest upgrades of Mafia II and Mafia III are also being released.

Mafia (2002) was written off by many as a Grand Theft Auto clone on release, although it is only superficially similar. Set in 1930 in the fictional city of Lose Heaven, the game focuses on Tommy Angelo, a cab driver who inadvertently helps some gangsters get out of a sticky situation. They extend their gratitude and ask Tommy to work for them as a driver. Tommy is reluctant to get drawn into a life of crime, but as he is completely broke he feels he doesn't have much choice. He rises through the ranks of Dan Salieri's organisation, which is based on family, loyalty and respect...until that interferes with profits.

Mafia didn't reinvent the wheel story-wise even back in the day, but what it did do was use an advanced graphics engine (which left contemporaries like GTA: Vice City looking archaic in comparison) to create believable, 3D characters who could emote somewhat believably and use that to tell an intense story of family, love, betrayal and revenge. The game was not an open world title as such, instead progressing through a linear series of missions linked by impressive cut scenes. Once complete, a "Free Ride" option was triggered which allowed the player to explore the city at their leisure and engage in activities such as working as a taxi driver. The game was notable not just for its incredible (for the time) graphics and impressive writing and acting, but also it's very solid combat (based on the same developer's Hidden and Dangerous WWII games) and its impressive driving, which really got across the feeling of these older, heavier cars.

The game also featured something that we haven't really seen since in an open world game, namely a constantly-evolving environment. As the game progresses over a period of five years or so, old buildings are torn down and new ones are thrown up, and several new skyscrapers being construction. The cars also dramatically improve over the course of the game.

Mafia II (2010) was set in Empire Bay in 1945 and 1951 and told the story of a young war hero, Vito, who also gets drawn into a life of crime. The game tried hard not to repeat things from Mafia, with Vito remaining a low-life hoodlum throughout the game and being, how shall we say, considerably dumber than Tommy. The game had great combat and looked better graphically, but in almost every other way it was a huge letdown compared to the first game.

Mafia III (2016) was set in New Bordeaux in 1968 and focused on Lincoln Clay, an African-American Vietnam War vet who returns home and is promptly drawn into a gang war against the local mafia, forcing him to start his own criminal enterprise. Mafia III was praised for its setting, main character and the idea of being a mob boss, but criticised for its open world approach, which was negatively derivative of the likes of Grand Theft Auto V without being as accomplished. It was a solid game, and a big improvement on the forgettable second game, but got a bit lost in the sea of other GTA clones.

The new remasters are known as "Definitive Editions" and vary in the quality of their remastering from game to game: Mafia III doesn't seem to have been touched at all and will merely release with all of its DLC in one package. Mafia II's remaster is largely restricted to its graphics, which have seen a big upgrade since the game's original release ten years ago.

The real hard work was reserved for Mafia, unsurprisingly for an eighteen-year-old game. The game has been completely rebuilt from scratch in a new engine. The city layout, characters, storyline and missions seem to be the same, although it's unclear if the audio has been re-recorded from scratch or just upgraded. It's also unclear if the game's structure has been changed to a more traditional open world approach. These will likely be made clearer next week, when Take Two hosts a more thorough exploration of the package.

Mafia Definitive Edition will be released on 27 August 2020 on PC, X-Box One, PlayStation 4 and Google Stadia.

Mafia II Definitive Edition will be released on 19 May (yup, next week). All three games will be available in a package called Mafia Trilogy from August.

MAFIA III pre-announced

Apparently, announcing that something is going to be announced is now a thing. 2K Games have confirmed that they will be announcing the existence of Mafia III with a trailer on 5 August. Which is weird, but okay (and at least it's not a trailer for a trailer, which is even more annoying).

Mafia III is, shockingly, the sequel to Mafia (2002) and Mafia II (2010), both developed by Illusion Softworks (now 2K Czech). Mafia was praised for its graphics - a massive step up from the then-contemporary Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City - and its highly memorable characters and storyline, as well as its measured pacing the clever way the city evolved between missions if long periods of time passed. Mafia II took place in a bigger city and of course was graphically more impressive, but its story was less compelling and its cast of characters altogether less memorable.

Mafia III has been developed primarily by Hanger 13, a new studio formed by veterans of LucasArts along with a couple of ex-Illusion staffmembers. 2K Czech is providing support, although a lot of the talent behind the first two games in the series have now left to form a new studio, Warhorse Studios, which is working on the medieval roleplaying game Deliverance: Kingdom Come.

Not much can be discerned about the game, but the cars and hairstyles in the only image released so far suggests that it will be set in the 1960s or 1970s. That makes sense given that the original game spanned much of the 1930s and the second was set in the early 1950s. It'll be interesting to see what Hanger 13 can come up with.

Mafia II

February 1945. Vito Scaletta returns from the war to his home city of Empire Bay. Almost immediately he finds himself drawn into a world of criminals and the mafia, as his best friend uses shady connections to get him released from the service early. As time passes Vito finds himself reaping the rewards from a life of crime...as well as the dangers.

Mafia II is the sequel to the 2002 game Mafia. Mafia is one of my favourite games of all time, with superb writing, tremendous characterisation and some fun shooting mechanics making up for occasionally questionable gameplay (such as that infamously hardcore racing mission). Mafia II is not a direct follow-up, set as it is in a different city with different characters. There are a couple of references to the events of the original Mafia, though these are obtuse enough that only hardcore fans are likely to spot them. Instead, the game's narrative is completely self-contained.

In terms of gameplay, the Mafia series resembles the Grand Theft Auto franchise with driving sections and on-foot combat, with the important difference that the Mafia games are not open-world titles. Instead you proceed directly from one mission directly to the next. This means that the cities do not need to be as exhaustively detailed and brimming with stuff to do as in the GTA titles, since they are merely backdrops to the action (though they are still well-realised). This gives the Mafia games a much greater focus and puts both their stories and characters under much more pressure, as they need to be good for the games to succeed. The GTA games, which a lot of people play purely to cause havoc in the cities without ever looking at the main storylines, don't quite have the same pressure.

This requirement paid off handsomely in the original Mafia. The story of Tommy Angelo's rise from taxi driver to criminal fixer, becoming a made man and gaining a family and respectability before realising how brutal and violent his world had become, was extremely compelling. It featured musings on the corrosive effects of violence on the psyche and on the morality of killing. It was a stronger story than anything to appear in a GTA title (and, interestingly, GTA4 seemed to take more than a few ideas from it).

The personalised number plates are pretty cool.

Unfortunately, it does not pay off in Mafia II. Illusion Softworks - now 2K Czech - were obviously keen not to repeat themselves in this game, so Vito Scaletta's story is rather different to Tommy's. It unfolds over a much shorter span of time (limited to two periods of several months in 1945 and 1951) and is less of the traditional rags-to-riches tale. Vito is a small-time hood who pretty much stays a small-time hood (albeit one who eventually gets a rather nice house) throughout. He doesn't have a relationship or get married, and in fact seems to be rather more sexist than Tommy (the lack of any healthy female relationships in his life and his obsession with collecting Playboy magazines indicates such). He's also a lot dumber, frequently agreeing to shady deals that have, "THIS IS GOING TO GO BADLY WRONG," written all over them.

This in itself is a problem, with Vito's misadventures being less compelling than either Tommy's in the earlier game, or the protagonists of most of the GTA games. A bigger problem is the lack of decent other characters. Aside from Vito's best buddy Joe, none of the other characters in the game gets much of a personality, or motivation. Even keeping track of which criminal is working for which gang is hard work. There is little to no emotional investment in Vito, his story, or in the other characters, which does interfere with caring about the game.

Fortunately, the gameplay is still pretty good. It's similar to Mafia's and the gunplay is even better, helped by that rarest of beasts, a cover system which actually works and adds to the combat experience. There's one oddity in that Mafia limited you to one of each class of weapon whilst Mafia II allows you to carry every weapon at once, making it a rare example of a game that actually gives the player more choice rather than taking it away through limited arsenals. This is a welcome move. Driving is also similar, with the game still being rather less forgiving about things like running red lights, speeding or hit-and-runs than the GTA series. The cops are harder to shake this time around, but you also have more options for losing them, including running into clothes shops to change clothes or offering bribes. The missions are also quite long, with mid-mission checkpoints and a number of plot twists that, whilst usually predictable, keep things ticking over. The graphics are very impressive (especially the lighting; Mafia II may have the best sunrises and sunsets of any game to date, and the way car headlights diffuse in the fog is extremely atmospheric) and the soundtrack is first-rate, with some great (if occasionally anachronistic) tracks from the birth of the rock 'n' roll era.

Ultimately, Mafia II is a far less compelling game than its forebear due to the weaker writing, story and characters. This is annoying as the gameplay is often better, but you have much less reason to care about what's going on. The game is also stingier, with combat sections often being extremely brief and easy. Mafia II has most of the same ingredients as its excellent forebear, but this time around they do not combine into as compelling a game.

Mafia II (***) is available now in the UK (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3) and USA (PC, X-Box 360, PlayStation 3).