The Old Country doesn’t want to be compared to Rockstar Games and GTA 6

A few days ago, during the Game Awards 2024 ceremony, 2K Games and Hangar 13 lifted the veil around the next opus of the Mafia saga with the prequel Mafia The Old Country which offered us a very nice trailer and gave us appointment for summer 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC to discover the origins of organized crime in Sicily and experience the story of Enzo in the family of Don Torrisi.

A few days after the announcement, the developers gave more details about the title and also expressed their concern following the comparison with another highly anticipated game next year: GTA 6.

Mafia is not a GTA

Not easy to be the cousin company of Rockstar Games which prepares for 2025 the most anticipated video game and cultural product in history : Grand Theft Auto VI. 2K Games is starting to pay the Price, just a few days after the presentation of Mafia The Old Country during the Game Awards.

Expected for summer 2025, while GTA 6 is due to be released, if all goes well, in the fall of 2025, many players and professionals are starting to compare the two games and find out if they can coexist? Knowing that they are part of the same company, namely Take Two Interactive, is that not too complicated to manage?

On Rockstar’s side, we suspect that this is not too important. In any case, the entire video game industry is dreading the release of GTA 6 and who even want to stay as far away from it as possible, even if it means announcing at the last moment the release date of their games and postponing the release if necessary.

But on the side of Hangar 13, a much more modest studio than Rockstar, obviously the situation is more delicate. It will be 9 years since the license Mafia has not seen a new opus, after a Mafia III far from being up to par. For this new opus, Hangar 13 and 2K Games have returned to the origins, offering a game in the vein of Mafia and Mafia II. Sure of the quality of their game, the developers’ biggest fear is now the possible comparison that could be made with Rockstar and GTA 6.

During an interview with IGN, the developers expressed their concern and returned several times to the fact that from now on, Mafia and GTA are two licenses that no longer have anything to do with each other. For good reason, Mafia : The Old Country will not be an open-world, but a narrative game with open areas as could be the case Mafia et Mafia II when they are released.

«They are different games, and they become more and more different over time. If you follow the evolution of GTA and Mafia since the 2000s, 2002 to be precise, when GTA 3 and Mafia came out, these games were mechanically very similar. But Mafia has always had a bit more emphasis on linear storytelling, as opposed to open-world experiences, which Rockstar achieves in an industry-leading way. In fact, Mafia has become more and more linear story-driven over time. So I don’t think these games are that similar, other than the fact that they share a common theme».

Alex Cox, Game Director de Mafia : The Old Country

What I would say, honestly, is that when you’re developing a game it takes so much time that you just focus on making the best game possible and hoping it stands on its own. Obviously, I’m aware of the game you’re referring to (…) I believe our game will provide a fantastic experience, and that players will really enjoy what they find in it (…) We’re just focused on making the best game Possible mafia. We’re doing it for the Mafia fans, and that’s the story we want to tell in this universe.

Nick Baynes, President of Hangar 13

See you in summer 2025 to discover Enzo’s adventures in Mafia The Old Countrya new game in the saga which will not be a reboot. The game will be a prequel, in the framework of the three previous opuses. We are therefore not immune to finding certain references or allusions to characters from the first three games.

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