Mafia Remake Gameplay – The Level of Detail is Astounding!

Angels and Demons in HD

We’ve sung the initial praises of the Mafia remake before, but this just looks incredible! Mafia: Definitive Edition is not only a graphical upgrade from the original, it’s a complete rework of the original.

While this particular game will not be released until September 25th of this year, it’s sequels are currently available. Mafia II Remastered and Mafia III are available on Steam and Consoles right now. The Mafia: Definitive Edition will be $39.99 as a standalone or included in the Mafia Trilogy bundle for $59.99 when it releases.

Which is a hell of a deal in our opinion, but we also love these games so there is a little bit of a bias. 

You’re not here to listen to us wax on about our favorite games, you’re here to know what’s new in Mafia: Definitive Edition.

going from a remaster, to a remake

Firstly, this remake of the game is not being done by the original team that made Mafia I. Hanger 13 is the developer put in charge of remaking and remastering the game from the ground up. There was some oversight in place from the original 2K developers, but for the most part they held off. 

Haden Blackman, the lead director for Hanger 13 described the process of the game as going from a remaster, to a remake. How they went from just wanting to pay homage to a classic game, but then turned it into a full project.

“It was a pitch that came from the team. We have a number of people on the team who worked on the original Mafia, and they saw it as a good opportunity as we were bridging the gap between Mafia 3 and the next project we’re working on. And I agreed. I think that once we got into it, though, and we kind of started looking at all the things we could do, it became a little bit more than we originally anticipated.”

If you think from this quote that the game is just a remake, then Blackmen further clarifies in this next comment. Cementing the team’s approach to creating a new experience from an existing product.

“The tone and central themes and setting — the Prohibition era — we knew that all those things were things that would hold up. Then, when we started looking at the next layer, that’s where we said we needed to take things up to modern standards. The way in which we tell the story, the quality of the cinematics, the representation of certain characters.”

One of the major ways in which representation is being taken up a notch, is the character of Sarah Angelo. Wife of the main character Tommy, she showed up for about one scene and then vanished. Yet, this is a game that is all about family. It’s said in the trailer, in the promotional material and in the game. So Sarah will actually get another chance and take more of a role in the Definitive Edition.

Streets are wider, waypoints are more easy to find, driving is less restrictive

Blackmen also discusses how the physicality of the game has changed. Streets are wider, waypoints are more easy to find, driving is less restrictive etc.

He also mentioned how even though this is a version of the Mafia III Engine, it’s not just a copy-paste. Boasting a new lighting engine, stronger attention to detail, improved texture mapping etc. So even though it’s running on that architecture, it’ll look even better than it’s newest counterpart.

We’re very excited to get our hands on Mafia: Definitive Edition. We’ve been Mafia fans for quite a while, and getting to go back and experience them again has us hyped! Mafia II and III are underappreciated gems in gaming, but the original Mafia was criminally (rimshot) underplayed. 

Maybe that will change with the Definitive Edition, we’ll have to wait and see!

For more updates and articles on Mafia: Definitive Edition, stay tuned here at Scoophash!