Does anyone know if Mafia: The Old Country is officially Mafia 4, or are they still planning/making a Mafia 4 alongside this prequel. I feel like a bunch of rumours did the rounds, but my latest search makes it seem like everyone (the general community of gamers) is referring to this release as Mafia 4, regardless, when I'm not sure it was ever really revealed as such with it being a smaller scale prequel.
I know it's the hope that kills you, but I do hope that this game does well, and helps them to fund/keep funding a larger scale Mafia game, too.
9 years between games to release a small scale prequel does seem a bit of a long cycle, considering its supposed to be less challenging to develop, but then they were struggling at one point, so maybe that is fair enough.
I always say it's strange how in cinema Crime is such a huge genre, and it hasn't really translated to gaming in quite the same way, with Rockstar mostly cornering the market. Compared to genres like fantasy, horror and sci-fi their is nowhere near the same amount of releases in gaming, and it just seems like a weird imbalance conpared to cinema releases.
@Ravix I don’t know about the Mafia situation but thought I’d comment on the wider observation you brought up about low representation of organized crime drama in games. It does seem like the genre is underrepresented compared to movies and TV, as opposed to fantasy, Sci-Fi, and horror which tend to be over-represented in gaming. Historical fiction is probably slightly over-represented in gaming also.
I do think it all goes in cycles. Developers jump onto bandwagons and saturate a genre before moving onto the next popular setting. I think there was a run of crime drama in the PS3 and early PS4 era. The Rockstar stuff (GTA, and RDR/LA Noire although those are also historical drama, but so is Mafia), Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs, the continual deluge of Yakuza games, the Watch Dog games, even the Hitman games and Just Cause games are kind of in the ballpark, and random games like The Saboteur seemed to try to get that narrative driven open world crime essence but with the war backdrop. Of course I’m talking out of my rear about these because I’ve played very few of them, as the crime genre isn’t one that interests me, especially those in a modern urban setting.
Despite all those I listed off the top of my head, most are older series and dormant, like you mentioned. There’s been a drop off of crime games and it looks like all developers have conceded the ground to Rockstar now. The latest Saints Row colossal failure only deepened the divide between GTA and everything else.
With Mafia dipping its toes back on the pool of crime drama games, maybe we’ll see a resurgence. For now the hot genre is Feudal Japan and Sci-Fi. High Fantasy will probably always be a top genre in the gaming Universe. Norse mythology and Greek mythology has been put on the shelf for now, and comic book superheroes appear to be on the way out, with Wonder Woman cancelled, complete radio silence on Wolverine and any Spider-Man spin-off, and the underperformance of Suicide Squad, Midnight Suns, etc. I guess Rivals is a thing keeping it going though.
Pontifications aside, this is a reminder that I need to play the Mafia games. 😅
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Ravix For what it's worth: the official website's codebase refers to the game as mafia-4. Maybe more convincing: when Mafia 4 was originally rumored, it was always rumored to be a prequel. So it's safe to say they are one and the same.
@Th3solution I love the organized crime genre, but it was cursed by GTA. That game is so immensely popular that the game has completely overtaken the genre. I think Yakuza and the new Mafia are great examples of making a game about organized crime, without becoming a GTA clone. Hopefully The Old Country is good and successful, so more might follow.
@Herculean It’s a really interesting phenomenon. Usually when a game is popular and sells well, then clones and similar genre spinoffs start to sprout like weeds until the market is saturated with them (see Souls-likes, looter shooters, Ubi-open worlds, etc.) but with GTA, the series has almost engendered a monopoly of the large crime drama genre. It feels like studios flee the space, hopeless to make a competitive dent in Rockstar’s stranglehold on the market. It’s part of why I feel no motivation to play the GTA games. It’s silly, I know, but somehow it feels like the Wal-Mart of gaming. I’ll only go there if I absolutely have to. 😅
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution It's not for a lack of trying, there have been some GTA-likes over the year, but none managed to capture even a fracture of that game's excitement.
I don't know why, though. I like GTA, but I don't hold it up in as high regard as do many journalists do. To me it's just a very capable game.
@Herculean Despite my not having cultivated an interest in the series, I have to recognize Rockstar’s greatness with how they’ve pushed the game development sphere. Although it seems like they’ve been resting on their laurels of GTA’s success (especially GTA5), they are innovating and pushing boundaries. I think we owe much of the modern gaming climate to their GTA Online model, for better or for worse. Although GTA is certainly standing on the shoulders of pioneering efforts of the MMO’s and MOBA’s like WoW, DOTA2, LoL, the way they expanded the live service online lifestyle game into the open world sandbox action-adventure setting certainly influenced many games. And if I’m correct, GTA still does many things that other games have yet to replicate and seem to be pushing further with what the rumors of GTA6 are going to do. At some point, it’s even scary to think that an entire communal economy can be built like this, functioning more cohesively than many nations’ infrastructure and economic systems. Time will tell, but between Fortnite and GTA6 with its certain evolution of the Online live service portion, we’re getting closer and closer to living in the “Ready Player One” reality.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution To be fair, GTA Online was one of my favourite multiplayer online experiences. We had a good group of us to play together and had some genuinely hilarious moments. Finishing the online heists with the same group was great as well.
It’s not something I’d be able to replicate these days with other responsibilities but it was great fun. But as always, the experience of playing with random people online was always quite different..
I think the problem is any crime game is instantly compared by fans and media to GTA. And the consensus is always "well, its not GTA so why bother" But that is really, really weird.
In film we don't see every new release in the genre being shot down because it isn't X,Y or Z. There's good crime films, sh** crime films and everything in between. There are also hugely different ways of telling crime stories, and there's so many subgenres and styles, and it remains as popular a genre overall as ever.
I guess the issue is because it's occasional gamers, casual gamers that really bought in to GTA due to the lure of it being a really popular genre in the first place. And because the Houser's did it so well (mimicking and parodying the best in crime cinema, as well as western culture) it kind of leaves that as the only option people will accept in the crime gaming genre. So now we only really ever get Yakuza in the Japanese organised crime sphere, and Mafia in the period organised crime drama sphere. Yakuza is pretty niche, but those that like it love it, and its writing is usually one of the strong points. And Mafia that gets sh** on perennially for not being GTA (and sometimes through bad game design choices) if Mafia 3 didn't mess around with massively long and slow fetch quests and the poorly designed, progress halting district mechanics, then it would be an all time crime game, because it does a lot right, it is well acted, it is mature and at times doesn't pull any punches (just like good cinema) and yet "it's not GTA, pass" is very much a thing that affected it.
One day I do hope Sony does something full on with the Breaking Bad IP, or someone does, but not in a GTA like way, in an arthouse cinema narrative driven way, as suits the IP itself. A Naughty Dog kind of affair. Then at least we will have another example that crime games don't have to be like GTA to be good.
Moving my comment here. Currently playing: "why is it so hard to cancel a pre-order on PS Store" a real timeless classic, it seems.
Update:
Thankfully I was in a queue of one today and they have potentially sorted out the refund process relatively pain free. Apparently PlayStation dotcom slash refund is a thing now, too (which brings up all of your orders to potentially click on to cancel???) Despite all searches and FAQ's leading me to a chat bot initially, and then to an agent the next day during work hours, and a lot of people online saying how it is such a hassle to get refunds.
Have they turned a corner? Who knows, as I haven't tried this new refund page out myself, but thought I'd mention it incase it helps anyone out.
@JohnnyShoulder the most annoying franchise... in the world. Social Ball Kicking Simulator 26. The year of our lord 2025 edition still has the same exact bugs that it had on day one, but now with even more sprinkled in and it just isn't worth the hassle. I have no faith they will ever fix anything. So they can't have my money... Until I cave to peer pressure and most likely get it anyway 😭
I got a warning over the weekend from PlayStation for my code of conduct! I just sent a link to a mate for a Battlefield 6 stat tracker. I thought that was harsh, but the reasons they gave in the email that it was viewed as possible malicious content. 🤷
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@JohnnyShoulder yeah seems strangely harsh. Out of interest, what was the email entitled as I never check my emails (for this account) and have over 1000 unread… wondering if I’ve ever had any.
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