Is Mafia 4 On The Way?
Haven't we waited long enough?
This article is more than 2 years old
Following the series of rumors about the game’s production and subsequent delays over the past few months, Hangar 13 has finally confirmed that Mafia 4 is under development. In a developer interview for the original game’s 20th anniversary, the development studio’s general manager, Roman Hladik, revealed the information about the upcoming installment in the franchise, though it still remains to be seen whether the upcoming release will be titled Mafia 4.
According to IGN, both Hladik and the game’s Head of Production and Media Director, Tomaš Hrebiček, took the time to reflect on the franchise’s fantastic journey over the past two decades before Hladik broke the news about the upcoming Mafia 4. Admittedly, Hangar 13’s general manager said that the game is still a few years away and that he can’t share any more details at this point. He also expressed the general excitement behind the studio’s closed curtains regarding the new project and the continuation of one of the gaming world’s most prominent franchises.
While a hypothetical Mafia 4 has been rumored for quite some time now, the franchise began with 2002’s Mafia game, which was basically an open-world version of The Godfather. The game had an immersive narrative that spanned over three decades, covering the 1930s-1960s era. It followed a fictional crime family in a virtual iteration of Chicago, and it was received as a more realistic and more serious version of the massively popular Grand Theft Auto games. The PC version of the original game was a blast, with scores in the upper-80th percentiles.
Inspired by the success of 2002’s Mafia, which by the time the second game was released, had sold 2 million copies worldwide, Take-Two Interactive released the sequel, Mafia II, in 2010. Hangar 13 took over the franchise’s development by making the Mafia III game, which was released in 2016 to favorable reviews, with critics praising the game’s narrative, characters, and darker themes compared to its predecessors. In 2020, Hangar 13 also produced a remake of the original game and released it as Mafia: Definitive Edition, which also made a bang among the audiences.
And as much as we like to see timeless classics, such as the original Mafia game, getting their remakes and remasters to fit the modern gaming standards, we’d also like to see the franchise continued. Hangar 13’s announcement regarding Mafia 4 is a welcomed one, but with the details as scarce as they are, the fandom is firing up the speculation furnaces and spewing out theories about the upcoming game and its setting.
Considering that the previous narratives were set in past eras between the 1930s and 1970s, it’s safe to assume that the upcoming Mafia 4 will follow the same recipes. Still, some enthusiasts would also like to see the game set in an ‘80s Scarface settings — which had its own game canceled — while others think that it would distance the narrative from the franchise’s core. Whatever the case may be, Hladik clearly stated that we wouldn’t see Mafia 4 for some time, so we can only speculate that the game will release in late 2023 or even sometime during 2024.
