Mafia: Definitive Edition isn’t just a technical remaster of 2002’s Mafia, but a complete remake. In order to provide a more balanced narrative experience, developer Hangar 13 is re-doing the storytelling to expand stories of the protagonist’s friends and family.
Similar to what Square Enix did with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Hangar 13 is expanding stories of important characters that felt left out in the original game. For instance, we have information on the character development of Sarah, protagonist Tommy Angelo’s wife.
Someone on ResetEra mentioned how Sarah completely vanished from the game after the marriage. So, to give her more screen time for players to explore her perspective is huge and commendable.
Speaking to USGamer, Hangar 13 President and Chief Creative Officer Haden Blackman said, “For example, Sarah, the love interest in the original, she doesn’t get very much screen time, but she’s the heart of why Tommy Angelo is doing what he’s doing. At the beginning of the game, you learn that he’s trying to arrange a way out of the life and he’s doing it all for his family, so we wanted to make sure that as a player you knew what it was that he was trying to protect. We wanted to make sure that Sarah got more screen time; she’s in the game more, has an understandable kind of role in the lowercase family and uppercase Family.”
Sarah has been working with her father Luigi at Salieri’s Bar and has a strong understanding of how the mafia functions. So, expanding Sarah’s storyline would impact the story in an even better way. Other characters that have their roles expanded are Tommy’s compatriots, Paulie and Sam.
Hangar 13 has revamped a lot of the missions and their structures to make the players feel the impact. “We took a hard look at each mission and looked at whether or not we could add additional set pieces,” says Blackman. “If there was additional content we could put into those missions to flesh them out a little bit, or add a couple more memorable moments to each without sacrificing the core narrative beats or the intent of the mission of the story overall.”
Mafia: Definitive Edition won’t have repetitive side-missions like in Mafia 3, but more meaningful and diverse content. Hangar 13 is bringing a lot of features from Mafia 3, but one feature they’ve cut out is the neighborhood policing system.
Mafia: Definitive Edition will be out for PC on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One on August 28.
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