I was part of a closed demo presentation of Mafia II today, which is on track for a late 2009 release. The original Mafia was released in 2002 for the PC and later on consoles in 2004. Mafia II is said to be an epic tale of ten years of one man’s life that players will control. The adventure begins in February of 1945, in the snowy city of Empire Bay. Vito, the protagonist, has just come home from the war and has been hired to take out a local liquor producer nicknamed The Fat Man. The Fat Man hasn’t been paying his protection money, so the Mafia decided it was time for a visit, which means bringing the pain.
Players began by driving in the streets of Empire City, on a snowy February day. Ice on the streets made for some slick driving. A few minutes later, Vito arrives at his objective. A nicely rendered cutscene helped add some narrative and set the scene that saw Vito and two of his Mafia superiors taking position across the street from where the Fat Man was to pull up at. Just before the player took control again, the Fat Man snuck away into his building while his henchmen fired upon Vito and crew.
With the help of the two CPU controlled AI, as Vito, you blast your way through a couple of levels of this building that the Fat Man ran into. An emphasis was placed on utilizing the cover system; the demo was played with God Mode enabled, but the developers assured us that the game features a fairly realistic damage model and health system. Additionally, the HUD was disabled in the demo as the devs stated they are still working on how they want to implement a HUD.
Moments after a short elevator ride up, the Mafia trio spearheaded by Vito find the Fat Man cowaring in a corner. A cutscene takes over that has one of Vito’s bosses take a shot to the leg from the desperate Fat Man before he is shot down by Vito and the other Mafia member.
The final portion of the demo was the escape. Vito led the other two men out of the building and back into the car, with the injured man being carried by the other. The police are arriving on scene and it’s up to you to drive the men to the Mafia family doctor. A police road block stops you however and that is where the demo ended, with the cutscene showing the player in a dire situation of giving up or trying to drive away.
Empire City is going to be roughly 10 square miles and feature dozens of shops and NPCs to exploit, befriend, betray, and all of the other aspects of a Mafia story. While it wasn’t made known, my bet is that players take Vito from small time Mafia startup to Boss by game’s end, but we’ll see. Unfortunately there was no time for questions afterwards, but if you have any, post your questions on the forums or send me a PM and we will contact 2K to get some answers.
