{"id":87610,"date":"2026-08-14T13:01:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87610"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:38:51","slug":"25-years-of-mafia-video-games-an-oral-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87610","title":{"rendered":"25 Years of Mafia Video Games: An Oral History"},"content":{"rendered":"<section data-transform=\"mobile-ad-break\">\n<p>It\u2019s somewhat sobering to think that the Mafia franchise is nearly a quarter of a century old. Many of the people who make the games have been working on it for even longer. What began life in 2002 with the release of Illusion Softworks\u2019 Mafia has become a significant franchise for publisher 2K. And, like most other series of similar vintage, Mafia has seen its ups and downs. But it is still alive and kicking, even now, 25 years later.<\/p>\n<p>Today, August 14, 2K releases Mafia: The Omert\u00e0 Collection, which includes Mafia: The Old Country Definitive Edition, Mafia: Definitive Edition, Mafia 2: Definitive Edition, and Mafia 3: Definitive Edition. There\u2019s also a free update for Mafia: Definitive Edition on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S to add 60 frames-per-second gameplay \u2014 something fans have been crying out for for years. It\u2019s a busy time indeed for the Mafia franchise and its developer, Hangar 13.<\/p>\n<p>It is impossible to provide a comprehensive &#8216;making of&#8217; the entire franchise and all its years of development in a single hour-long interview, but I gave it a good shot when I sat down to talk to Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes, Hangar 13 general<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s somewhat sobering to think that the Mafia franchise is nearly a quarter of a century old. Many of the people who make the games have been working on it for even longer. What began life in 2002 with the release of Illusion Softworks\u2019 Mafia has become a significant franchise for publisher 2K. And, like&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":87612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87614,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87610\/revisions\/87614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}