The Mafia series has been using different versions of the same proprietary engine for as long as it has been around, but as we’re seeing more and more with time, when it returns with Mafia: The Old Country in 2025, it will make the switch to Unreal Engine 5. Speaking in a recent interview with VGC, developer Hangar 13 discussed why it decided to make that switch, and as you might imagine, a lot of it was about wanting to leverage the Epic toolset’s expanded capabilities.
“We moved to Unreal Engine 5, so we’ve rebuilt our game engine,” said game director Alex Cox. “We’ve had to rebuild our game technology, of course, because we moved from our old engine, which is what we built on the internal tech of previous Mafia games.”
Cox went on to talk about how the switch to Unreal “opens up a lot of possibilities” for Hangar 13 as a developer, and about how it also provided the opportunity to bring the series’ systems “up to current-gen expectation”.
“Unreal obviously opens up a lot of new possibilities for us, particularly visually,” he said. “The game looks really amazing.
“In a lot of ways, while we’re rebuilding the game, we wanted it to be quite familiar on the pad. So when you’re playing the game, we want the game to feel somewhat consistent with the previous Mafia games and not be a big diversion or distraction away from what players are going to come to a Mafia game expecting.
“But again, as we’ve come back, in the process of rebuilding everything, it’s been a chance for us to refresh everything, to bring all of those kinds of Mafia game systems up to current-gen expectations, let’s say.
Cox went on to add that Mafia: The Old Country’s Sicily, which has a “very, very different” vibe from previous Mafia settings, is also brought to life much more convincingly thanks to Unreal Engine 5.
“You know, in a Mafia game that’s set in a city, the thing that we really want to sell is the hustle and bustle of the city,” Cox said. “So whether that’s New Bordeaux, whether that’s Empire Bay, whether that’s Lost Heaven, we wanted to really put across that vibe.
“In Sicily, in Mafia: The Old Country, the vibe is very, very different. So the beautiful landscapes, as you say, is exactly what we wanted to deliver and Unreal’s really helped us in that regard. You know, all of those kind of eye-catching new technologies which have come on board with Unreal 5, we’re putting them to good use.”
For more on Cox’s thoughts about how The Old Country’s rural, period Sicilian setting differs from the urban cityscapes of past Mafia titles, head on over here.
Mafia: The Old Country is due out in summer 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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