Mafia will return with a new installment developed by Hangar 13

2K Games confirms the best news for fans of the Mafia franchise: a new installment is being developed by Hangar 13, the parents of the third installment. The company has confirmed the project as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the original, which will remain free on Steam for a limited time.

“I'm happy to confirm we've started work on an all-new Mafia project!" shares Roman Hladík, CEO of the studio in an interview to the official portal of the saga. While it's a few years away and we can't share anything more right now, we're really excited to keep working on this beloved franchise and to entertain our players with new stories."

No specific details about the project have been shared. To see the last main installment we must go back to October 2016, with a Mafia III that took us to the New Bordeaux of 1968. The controversy with that installment, below in quality with respect to its predecessors, marked a subsequent line towards revitalizing the saga's origins. The excellent remake of the first Mafia and the remastering of Mafia II were enough to sow the path towards this news.

Why Hangar 13 has taken so long?

Little information has come to the public light since the release of Mafia III. Jason Scheider, the reputable Bloomberg journalist, shared in 2018 an extensive report where he recounted the creative comings and goings of the team. Rhapsody was the codename for their next video game, a Cold War spy story starring a Jewish Russian who is hired by a U.S. spy agency in the heart of Berlin. What looked like a classic sandbox quickly mutated into an action game with fantastic elements. The protagonist could use the power of music to perform special powers. It ended up canceled after wandering aimlessly for months.

However, things changed in 2020. In a meeting with investors, Karl Slatoff, CEO of Take-Two, stated that Mafia remained "an important franchise" for the publisher. These words made sense after the publication of several job offers at Hangar 13 that pointed to the development of a new open-world Triple-A game. Now we know that it was a new Mafia.

Source | Take-Two