With the brand new trailer for Mafia: The Previous Nation that debuted throughout The Recreation Awards 2024, we’ve revealed our first have a look at the protagonist of this 1900s crime drama: Enzo Favara, an orphaned laborer given the uncommon alternative to affix the Torrisi crime household. By swearing an oath of loyalty to Don Torrisi, Enzo begins his descent into the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily, the place he’ll need to show his value by way of uncooked grit and dedication.
Mafia: The Previous Nation is coming to Xbox Collection X|S in Summer season 2025 and is out there to want listing now on the Microsoft Retailer. To share extra about this new story within the acclaimed Mafia collection, Recreation Director Alex Cox particulars what gamers can count on from this third-person, action-adventure set amidst the origins of organized crime.
What made the Hangar 13 crew resolve that 1900s Sicily was the perfect time and place to set the subsequent title within the Mafia franchise?
Recreation Director Alex Cox: Each Mafia title goals to immerse gamers in an iconic interval of organized crime historical past. Mafia: The Previous Nation is not any totally different, despite the fact that we’ve modified continents and turned again the clock! With the primary three video games exploring distinctive eras of the American Mafia, we cherished the thought of heading to Sicily and exploring the early years of this fearsome crime group. The setting felt like a fantastic alternative to shake issues up whereas completely complementing the cinematic imaginative and prescient of the franchise.
Growing Mafia: The Previous Nation has been a refreshing departure for the studio, with the rugged Sicilian countryside serving as a stark distinction to the bustling cities featured in our earlier video games. Constructing this story has been a fantastic expertise for everybody at Hangar 13—first studying about Sicilian historical past and the origins of the Mafia, then adapting that into an thrilling legal journey. Particularly, the setting has allowed us to introduce some enjoyable new options, akin to horses, knife duels, and classic autos from the daybreak of motoring (together with hand-crank engines, after all!).
How have the Hangar 13 crew tried to recreate such an uncommon, and beforehand unexplored, location and period with 1900s Sicily?
Cox: We wouldn’t have made this recreation until we felt capable of do justice to the setting, so the very first thing we did was go to Sicily ourselves to soak up its sights and sounds and get a firsthand really feel for the island and its tradition. We’ve been working carefully with Stormind Video games, a Sicilian growth studio that has offered invaluable steering throughout our visits and all through all our analysis.
We additionally consulted with specialists in Sicilian historical past, who helped us infuse the sport with all of the interval element gamers count on from a Mafia title. From getting the brickwork excellent, to choosing the proper people music, to picking the juiciest Sicilian profanities, we’ve completed all the pieces we will to make sure a singular sense of place permeates each second of the expertise.
What varieties of distinctive challenges did you encounter by setting Mafia: The Previous Nation in 1900s Sicily? Has it been laborious to make sure that genuine interval weapons and autos are nonetheless thrilling for gamers used to extra fashionable options?
Cox: Our strategy to 1900s weaponry has been to make fight extra tactical and deliberate than in earlier Mafia titles. Gunfights in Mafia: The Previous Nation are hardly ever about uncooked firepower; gamers might want to make the perfect use of no matter sources they’ve at hand. To ship a hearty dose of interval taste, we’ve leaned closely into the “instruments of the commerce” of a Sicilian Mafioso, from lupara shotguns to stiletto blades. There’s actual grit to those older, extra conventional weapons.
As for the modes of transportation, each recreation within the Mafia collection has authentically recreated the autos of its period—however we’ve by no means had the participant driving on horseback earlier than! Galloping throughout the Sicilian countryside feels extremely releasing and is not like something we’ve completed up to now.
In the meantime, the vehicles offered a enjoyable problem for the crew. Capturing the texture of autos from the daybreak of motoring means you received’t be hitting freeway speeds on Sicily’s filth roads, nevertheless it’s nonetheless thrilling to be behind the wheel of a getaway automobile as rival gangs give chase.
What’s been essentially the most thrilling a part of going again this far within the Mafia timeline?
Cox: Exploring the roots of the Mafia has been genuinely fascinating, particularly as this setting and time interval are fairly distinctive in video video games. Iconic crime movies and TV reveals have given us a glimpse into Cosa Nostra’s early days, however that is our likelihood to make the legal underworld of 1900s Sicily playable, which is extremely thrilling.
As a result of this story takes place earlier than the occasions of the opposite Mafia video games, we’ve been capable of create a brand new entry level to the franchise narrative whereas nonetheless tying in with characters and occasions from later within the timeline. You completely don’t must have performed the opposite Mafia video games to understand this story, as the primary forged is totally new—however followers of the collection will get a kick out of how Mafia: The Previous Nation connects to the remainder.
Contemplating that roughly 5 years can have handed for the reason that launch of Mafia: Definitive Version, how did the crew deal with persevering with the collection’ custom of immersive cinematic storytelling?
Cox: Our cinematic storytelling is simply made attainable due to our unbelievable, Hollywood-caliber forged. Each Mafia recreation has been blessed with top-quality performing expertise, however I truthfully really feel that Mafia: The Previous Nation options our strongest performances up to now. As with earlier Mafia titles, we’ve used state-of-the-art movement seize know-how to convey each nuance and emotion our forged brings to the stage.
We’ve additionally switched to Unreal Engine 5 for the event of Mafia: The Previous Nation, which has allowed for an excellent larger degree of visible constancy than earlier Mafia titles. Our environments and characters are extra lifelike and plausible than ever earlier than. We’re doing all the pieces we will to make our story utterly immersive, whether or not by way of seamlessly transitioning into cinematics or permitting the participant to discover extremely detailed narrative scenes throughout gameplay.
How did the crew be certain that Mafia: The Previous Nation‘s interpretation of Sicily not solely continued, however contributed to the legacy of their earlier takes on iconic places like New York, Chicago, and New Orleans?
Cox: What made our renderings of Misplaced Heaven, Empire Bay, and New Bordeaux profitable was the studio’s dedication to authenticity and a spotlight to element, which enabled gamers to really inhabit these places and immerse themselves in bygone eras. In a lot the identical means, the crew’s first precedence when creating Mafia: The Previous Nation was to make Sicily herself really feel like a personality central to the story. This time, working in Unreal Engine 5, we’ve been capable of make Sicily much more visually spectacular than the places we constructed earlier than.
What different varieties of distinctive challenges may gamers count on to face in Mafia: The Previous Nation? Are there another components distinctive to The Previous Nation that gamers haven’t encountered in earlier Mafia titles?
Cox: Exploring a fantastically realized interpretation of 1900s Sicily—from citrus farms and vineyards to the gorgeous hilltop city of San Celeste and the rolling countryside in between—has been core to our imaginative and prescient for Mafia: The Previous Nation since day one. It’s laborious to overstate the impression our new setting has had on the expertise, even when it’s all nonetheless rooted in that traditional Mafia gameplay.
Mafia: The Previous Nation is coming to Xbox Collection X|S in Summer season 2025 and is out there to want listing now on the Microsoft Retailer.
Mafia: The Previous Nation
2K
Uncover the origins of organized crime in Mafia: The Previous Nation, a gritty mob story set within the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily. Combat to outlive as Enzo Favara and show your value to the Cosa Nostra on this immersive third-person action-adventure set throughout a harmful, unforgiving period.
This thrilling narrative is dropped at life by gorgeous visuals, cinematic storytelling, and the genuine realism that the critically acclaimed Mafia collection is understood for. Enzo’s story unfolds in a time when ability with a stiletto blade was a lethal asset, a lupara sawed-off shotgun was a go-to firearm, murderous vendettas raged for many years, and mafiosi patrolled their safety rackets on foot, horseback, or behind the wheel of turn-of-the-century motorcars.
By means of grit and dedication, Enzo has survived a childhood of indentured labor in Sicily’s hellish sulfur mines. Now, by way of a accident, he has the chance to affix Don Torrisi’s crime household, and can do no matter it takes to carve out a greater life for himself.
By swearing an oath, Enzo has dedicated himself to the Torrisi household’s code of honor, with all the facility and hardship it entails. He should always remember this easy reality:
Household Takes Sacrifice.
COMING SUMMER 2025 || WISHLIST NOW
UNCOVER A MERCILESS WORLD OF ORGANIZED CRIME
The rough-hewn fantastic thing about Sicily’s rugged countryside is a stark distinction to the grime of city alleyways—however the treachery and violence of this gangland run simply as deep.
PLAY A CLASSIC MOB MOVIE
You are the antihero of this thrilling 1900s story, dwelling out each tense second of Enzo’s descent into Sicily’s clandestine legal underworld. Soak in sun-drenched Mediterranean surroundings with picture-perfect visuals powered by Unreal Engine 5, and immerse your self in each period-authentic element of this traditional crime drama.
FIGHT TO SURVIVE
Have interaction in life-or-death fight, be it up shut with a blade or from afar with quite a lot of firearms. To show himself worthy within the Torrisi household, Enzo must grasp all of the instruments of the commerce, together with period-authentic handguns, rifles, and shotguns, to beat any odds and doggedly eradicate the Don’s enemies
TRAVEL IN AUTHENTIC STYLE
To achieve your subsequent goal or make a hurried getaway, you may must gallop on horseback throughout cobbled streets and open fields, or velocity down filth roads in genuine turn-of-the-century vehicles.
Authenticity is on the coronary heart of the Mafia franchise, and Mafia: The Previous Nation can have totally localized voice performing in Sicilian to match the setting and time interval.
