TRANSCRIPT:
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Welcome to the second episode of the Mafia II podcast. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, community manager here at 2K, and today I’m here with Denby [Grace], Producer, and Jack Scalici, the Director of Production here at 2K games. Today we’re going to be talking about Mafia, both past and present for the game.
So to start off, Mafia II is a sequel, but for those who are new to the franchise, can you give us a quick summary of what this game is all about?
DENBY GRACE:
Fundamentally, the game is in the crime action genre. Created[?] with the first game, its big strong point is its mature storytelling and its engrossing cinematic experience that we aim to give players. We want to give players a feeling of what is it like to play as a character in a big mob crime family? Take a look at any popular media such as Sopranoes, Goodfellas, the Departed, things like that. All of this is good touch reference for where the game is going. Other sorts of things to talk about the game: it's an authentic period setting game, set in the 40s and 50s, which we think is a really unique experience for players to enjoy. No other real game's gone down that road yet, and we're really excited to be bringing that to players. I don't know, what do you think, Jack, anything to add there?
JACK SCALICI:
I really agree, especially with the period the game is set with, that it's just so unique because America was changing at that point, it was World War II, and then it was Post-World War II in the 1950s. There's an explosion of technology and American culture. So, not only does the player grow from just being an everyday guy to eventually a ‘Made Man,' but America changes right alongside him, so it's really a unique experience.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
As a sequel, Mafia II has some pretty big shoes to fill. When you started planning out this game, what did you want to carry over from the first? What did you want to explore? What did you want to change? And, in answering this question, how about you guys talk a little bit about Mafia I for those who maybe didn't play it, or don't know too much, or haven't played it in a long time.
JACK SCALICI:
Ok, Denby, you want to take this one, since you worked on the game?
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, sure. So, first of all I start by explaining that when Mafia I was being published by, I think Gathering was the label it was originally published under, I was actually working at Take-Two Europe as a video games tester, so I experienced Mafia I firsthand from a QA perspective. So, it's really interesting for me to be a little bit further up the chain and have a bigger influence on maybe how shaping the second game goes. But, my memory of Mafia I is very fond and maybe a little bit hazy, I guess, now. The game did really well back in 2002 when it launched, was mainly because it was doing something really interesting and really different with the storytelling. It really struck a chord with fans how it went down the route of a really serious mature experience, where maybe a lot of other games in the past had gone down the route of parodying popular media, rather than actually trying to take itself too seriously. It did it with genre-defining cinematics, and stuff like that. Again, that's something that we still want to do in Mafia II, absolutely, it's one of the things that really is the staple for this game.
As well of that, I think the thing that did really well for Mafia I was the period setting was very interesting for people. There's not been anything else really set in the 20s in America. Everything else in that period is either World War I or World War II game, and I think that in itself is quite an interesting sort of different unique angle for people to look at.
When thinking about things that we wanted to change, when we sort of first looked into planning is, I guess one thing was we wanted to create a whole new story and new experience for players to play without having to reference back to Mafia I. If people remember the story that accurately, pretty much everyone died, so there was no continuation of the story in Mafia I. So, we immediately started with a whole new story, a whole new setting, a whole new period setting for Mafia II. We looked at what would be interesting and we drew on a lot of reference when looking at the game. I know Dan Vávre, the lead writer of the project, he reference a lot of actual written media and stuff like that for inspiration, I think. I don't think anything, we're not recreating anything specific, we're just drawing on stuff for reference. It's a really interesting time period for the game to be set.
As for what we wanted to change, the biggest thing, I think the fans would agree with me on, is the car driving wasn't that exciting in the first game, due to the speed, the do-gooding cops that wanted to book you every red light that you ran through. Stuff like that, we learned from the first game is maybe for the second game we need to look at actually having the gameplay take precedent over the rules of the road. That's for sure something we've changed up a bit. Naturally, the game being set in the 40s and 50s, the car driving is faster, but some of the things we're looking at doing is cops will sort of give chase, but only a couple of blocks, if it's a light offense. They won't hunt you down, like you've committed the most heinous crime, across the city, when in fact you've only ran a small red light. So, there's things like that that we're looking to change.
Another thing is the game was released seven years ago, which is an absolute age as far as games development is concerned. Design and game design in those terms has changed massively since the late 90s/early 200s to where we are today. Games are much more accessible, they're much more “pick up and play,” and Mafia II is going to reflect that a little bit more. The game, we'll endeavor to ensure the player knows what they're doing at all times, knows what their goals are quite clearly. I feel a lot of the time in Mafia I, people get lost and I don't know how many people actually complete that game without having to refer to a walkthrough at some point. That's one of the things we don't want to lose from the game: the game was a good challenge, and it was rather difficult, and we'll aim to bring that back in Mafia II. We don't want to lose any of that hardcore gaming experience that people may be expecting.
The final point, I think, to touch on here is the fact that the first game was released as a PC lead title. Fundamentally it was designed from the top down as a PC game, and then when it came to putting the game out on the consoles in 2004, it was pretty much just a port that we did, and as such it probably suffered a little bit. One of the things that we are doing this time is straight from the ground up, from day one, is this game was going to be an all-platform game. It was always going to be played with a console pad in their hand, as well as that like Mafia I, we will support things like keyboard and mouse settings and all the stuff that PC gamers expect to experience, but from the ground up, the game is designed to be a sort of all-three-platforms experience.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Jack, from your point of view, having worked extensively on Mafia II, can you talk a little bit about what you think was most important when designing this game, and if you did relate to Mafia I while writing Mafia II?
JACK SCALICI:
Well, I experienced Mafia I from a consumer's perspective, I was not employed at Take-Two when that game was released, so it was all brand new to me. I played it on PC, then I played it on X-Box, and the real strength of Mafia I was the cinematic storytelling and the mature story. I think that is the core of what we're bringing over from Mafia I to Mafia II. As Denby said, pretty much everybody died in the first game, so there won't really be a continuation of any character's story in Mafia II, but that same feeling you get from playing a game, you're going to get that feeling again in Mafia II.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Now, you guys have said a couple times that the end of Mafia didn't really leave much time for a sequel. So, other than carrying over a direct character or anything like that, is there any kind of subtle nods to past fans, or places, references that we might see that will remind us of the first game?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes. If you're a fan of Mafia I, we're putting plenty of stuff in Mafia II for you. The casual player who hasn't played Mafia I who picks up Mafia II and plays it will be able to. They may not get all the references to Mafia I, but the Mafia I fan definitely will.
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, absolutely. I can second what Jack's saying there. I think the most important thing we've retained from Mafia I is the soul of the franchise. The game, when you play it, it has the same magic of Mafia I. It has the same feeling, it evokes the same feelings in the player, you know. And as someone who worked on both games now, it really does. You pick up and play and it feels like no other game. It feels like a Mafia game, and I think that's one of the things that the fans are going to be really pleased with, is completely, we've retained the soul of Mafia II, even though we've moved the story on thirty years, we've moved the location of where this thing takes place to a different fictional city in America, but fundamentally, the game feels like a Mafia game. It has these epic cinematic experiences. It has these great deep characters that you really want to sort of believe in and you want to take part in their lives and influence their lives. That, for me, is the big thing that Mafia brought to players back seven years ago, and we're going to do the same again with Mafia II.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Who is making Mafia II? Can you tell me a bit about the team, and if there's anyone on that team, other than you, of course, Denby, who helped create the original game?
DENBY GRACE:
The developer of Mafia II is 2K Czech, who formerly of course were Illusion Softworks. The team at its core features a lot of the same guys from Mafia I. The big differences, I guess, is that making a game at the end of the 90s, the team size was about 21 at its core. And it expanded a little bit, given a few external contractors here and there. As of today, we're running at somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and twenty team members. The major bulk of this is obviously we're developing for three platforms straight off the bat rather than just one, but ultimately, games are just massively more huge. The amount of content that's involved in them is just much huger than back in seven years ago. The other thing, and I think I'll let Jack talk to you about this, is the production of Mafia II compared to Mafia I, and maybe I just hand over to Jack at this point.
JACK SCALICI:
Ok. One thing, as Denby pointed out, our team size now is about, who knows, six-seven times bigger than it was during Mafia I's production. And something I think is really cool is that most of those same guys are still around. It's the same guys who made Mafia I are now making Mafia II, but they have, like I said, six-seven times the number of people at their disposal. They have the full support of the publisher, they're owned by 2K and Take-Two, and we're 100% behind these guys. We went over there about a year ago, just to check out their operation, and we were just blown away by what they were able to achieve. So, that was a big factor behind the purchase of the company: we believed in their technology, we believed in their tools, and we believed in their talent.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Jack, you've been over there quite a bit, actually. Can you talk more a bit about the production of the game and what it's been like being in the actual studio?
JACK SCALICI:
It's really been a terrific experience to work side by side with these guys, hand in hand. The tools and technology that they're working with now are just so far beyond what they had for Mafia I, they're able to do so much more with the cinematics for example. I think that was a big part of Mafia I, our cutscenes, our cinematic experience. And I've been working really closely with the guys who are involved with that, in both audio, video, animation, things like that. And what they can do in their editor is just incredible, and you saw that in the trailer. That was all done from their editor.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Awesome. Well, I know that this is just the first of many deep dives into the game. This is going to conclude our second podcast. I want to thank you guys for being here, talk to you next episode.
DENBY GRACE:
Cool. Look forward to it, thanks Elizabeth.
JACK SCALICI:
Ok, bye.
