Ahead of the release of the trailer for Mafia : The Old Country, Alex Cox, game director, and Nick Baynes, studio president Hangar 13gave several interviews here and there. And it is among our colleagues atIGNthat they particularly spoke about the similarities, and especially the differences, between the two games. If they both offer a different version of crime, they are also very different playing fields that we will find next year. On one side, a gigantic open world in GTA 6, and on the other a more linear adventure with Mafia : The Old Country. For the latter, the goal is in fact to get closer to the formula of Mafia 1 and 2. It is a sort of step backwards which is carried out because Mafia 3 had broadened its horizons in 2015 by falling precisely into the pitfall of pure open world. This time, it will of course be possible to digress a little from the story by going for a walk, but you won’t have to expect an abundance of side quests. Your guideline will always remain the story of the game:
What I would say is that in Mafia: The Old Country, you’re not going to do a ton of side quests or participate in activities throughout the game world. We want players to go through and experience a story, while being immersed in this magnificent universe. And if, following a path, you want to explore a specific place, in many cases you will be able to do so, because the world is there, around you. But our main goal is to encourage you to follow the story.
This story follows Enzo Favara, a young man who lives in Sicily in the 1900s and who has just joined the Torrisi crime family. According to the interview withIGNthe goal with The Old Country will therefore be to offer a tighter adventure on the evolution of this character and supposed to be closer to a “cinematic experience.” But to do this, one key word must take precedence: authenticity. The advantage of not opting for a torrent of quests and other content is that there is less risk of getting lost and breaking the plausibility of the universe. An advantage that is all the more interesting as we cannot really say that the American studio Hangar 13 is linked to the place and time that it seeks to transcribe.
In the Ubisoft way with Assassin’s Creed in particular, the teams mixed business with pleasure by traveling to Sicily several times. Historians and other experts trained the developers of Mafia : The Old Country to allow them to bring to life an island that is larger than life. “As with other Mafia games, the recreation of the environment plays a central role,” explique Alex Cox, “it’s about capturing this era, the mafia in this precise framework, and ensuring that this vision is rich and faithful.” Always for the sake of authenticity, Hangar 13 also collaborated with a Sicilian studio, namely Stormind (Remothered, Batora: Lost Haven…) For all these reasons, developers do not want to give in to easy comparisons between GTA and Mafia. The one and only thing that lives in their minds according to Nick Baynes: “just make the best Mafia game possible.” And we can only hope that they will succeed, without comparison.
As a reminder, Mafia: The Old Country is announced for next summer on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series.
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