Mafia II opens in 1943 with Vito Scaletta, a Sicilian immigrant, caught in a robbery and offered a choice: prison or the United States Army. He takes the uniform. Two years later he is back in Empire Bay on leave, and his childhood friend Joe Barbaro has already found work with the city’s crime families. Vito’s father is dead and the family is deep in debt to a loan shark. That debt is the engine of everything that follows.
2K Czech developed Mafia II and 2K published it on 24 August 2010 for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360. It is a standalone sequel to 2002’s Mafia and the second game in the series. The score at the bottom of this review is 7.3 of 10.
Trailer, via Wiseguy Central.
Empire Bay, 1945 to 1951
The setting is the fictional city of Empire Bay, built on the eastern coastline and split by a river. Its districts run from wealthy suburbs to slums to tenement blocks divided by ethnicity — Irish, African-American, Chinese, Italian — plus industrial complexes, a large port, a railroad station, and a prison outside the city limits. The architecture, public transportation and landmarks draw on New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Detroit.
That list of reference cities is the tell. Empire Bay is not one place. It is six places wearing one name, and the seams show.
The story spans two distinct periods, 1945 and 1951, with the first chapter set in the Sicilian town of San Celeste and the sixth inside a prison outside Empire Bay. Vito returns from the war, learns what his father owed, and takes mob work with Joe to settle it. After a stint in prison he emerges in 1951 and rises fast through the Falcone family. Then the rival factions start pressing, and his loyalties get tested by forces he cannot control.
Three Families and a Wanted System
Empire Bay’s underworld is divided among the Falcone, Vinci and Clemente families, a Chinese Triad outfit, the Irish Mob, and several street gangs. Vito’s climb through the Falcone ranks is the spine of the campaign.
The wanted system governs how hard law enforcement comes after you. Criminal activity raises the heat, and the response escalates with it. It is a clean idea, and it does the job of making the open world feel patrolled rather than empty.
Combat is cover-based, a change from the first game, where the player could only drop into an arbitrary crouch behind objects. Here you take cover and shoot from it. The game also carries a limited melee system of punching and dodging, and two context actions for the environment — a standard one and a violent one. Stealing a car, you pick the lock or break the glass. The choice is small. It is also the kind of small choice open worlds usually skip.
Fifty Cars and the Ice Under Them
Driving is half the game. There are 50 era-accurate vehicles and licensed period music across multiple radio stations. Weather changes how the cars handle — in the early winter chapters, ice makes the road slippery and the vehicles more likely to slide.
The arsenal mixes old and new. The Thompson submachine gun, the Colt 1911 and a pump-action shotgun return from the first Mafia. World War II weapons join them, including the MG 42 and the Beretta Model 38.
Cutscenes are rendered in real time by the game engine. If a cutscene starts while Vito is riding in a car, he is in the same car, in the same condition, when it ends. It is a modest piece of continuity that most games of the period did not bother with.
What the World Refuses to Give
Development began in 2003, soon after the first Mafia shipped. On release, Mafia II drew positive reviews, with praise aimed at its story, characters and gameplay. The criticism landed on the restrictive world design and the features it lacked compared with other sandbox games.
That criticism is correct, and it is the whole argument. Empire Bay looks like a sandbox and behaves like a corridor. The map is there, the districts are there, the cars and the radio stations are there — but the game keeps steering you back onto the story’s rails. You are not let loose in Empire Bay. You are escorted through it.
The counterargument is that the restraint is the point. A mob story about a man who cannot escape the forces around him does not need fifty side activities. Vito spends the game being moved by other people — the Army, the debt, the family, the prison, the Falcone hierarchy. A world that refuses to open up is at least honest about what it is.
Both readings survive contact with the game. What does not survive is the idea that Mafia II is a lesser Grand Theft Auto. It is not trying to be one. It is a story-driven campaign with a city attached, and judged on those terms the campaign holds.
The Director’s Cut and What Came After
Feral Interactive released Mafia II: Director’s Cut in December 2011, bundling all previously released downloadable content. Three DLC packs exist: The Betrayal of Jimmy and Jimmy’s Vendetta, both set in the early 1950s in a different canon from the base game, and Joe’s Adventures, set during the main storyline and bridging the gap between 1945 and 1951. Mafia II: Definitive Edition arrived alongside the remake of the first game. A sequel, Mafia III, came from 2K Czech’s successor Hangar 13 in October 2016.
The DLC structure is worth noting because it shows where the game’s confidence actually sat. Joe’s Adventures fills a gap in the main timeline. The other two step outside canon entirely. The main story was the asset, and the main story was also the thing the base game would not stretch.
The Numbers Behind Empire Bay
- Release date: 24 August 2010
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360
- Developer: 2K Czech
- Publisher: 2K
- Setting: Empire Bay, 1945–1951
- Vehicles: 50 era-accurate models
- Development start: 2003
- Score: 7.3 of 10
Release Timeline
| Date | Release |
|---|---|
| 2002 | Mafia |
| 24 August 2010 | Mafia II (PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360) |
| December 2011 | Mafia II: Director’s Cut (Feral Interactive) |
| October 2016 | Mafia III (Hangar 13) |
The Verdict on Vito
Mafia II earns its 7.3. The story, the characters and the shooting are the reasons to play it, and the cover system plus the real-time cutscenes show a studio that knew exactly what kind of game it was making. The debt that starts the plot is a better motivation than most crime games manage, because it is specific and it is small — one family, one loan shark, one man who has to go to work for people he should not know.
The world design is the cost. Empire Bay is beautiful and inert, a set of districts you drive through rather than live in. The DLC confirms the split: the game’s best material is the main line, and the main line is finite.
Play Mafia II for Vito and Joe. Do not play it for the city.
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