Hangar 13 has, once again, hit a bit of a rough patch of late. The Mafia studio’s new sci-fi open world game was cancelled in November last year, following which the studio has recently been hit with a round of layoffs. Even so, with leaks claiming that a fourth Mafia game – allegedly a prequel – and a new Top Spin instalment are in development at across Hangar 13’s four studios, it seems that the developer has plenty on its late right now.
However, it seems Hangar 13 is looking ahead even further into the future, and is hoping to get yet another Mafia game greenlit by parent company Take-Two Interactive. In a recent Bloomberg report, journalist Jason Schreier claimed that in a virtual meeting with Hangar 13 staff following the aforementioned layoffs, Nick Baynes – who recently took charge of Hangar 13 following former studio head Haden Blackman’s departure – said that he’s aiming to get a fifth Mafia game greenlit while the fourth one is still in development.
Apparently, Baynes is taking that step so that the Mafia 4 team will have a new project to instantly jump to as soon as their current one is wrapped up, allowing for a smoother transition and hopefully avoiding the kind of displacement that has crippled Hangar 13 in the past.
As for the two ongoing projects, it seems both are in the early stages of development right now, so it might be some time before we get concrete details on either of them. That said, reports claim that the plan is for Top Spin 5 to launch before Mafia 4– read more on that through here.
