Mafia II Interview Page 3

04 Feb 2010 at 15:14:25 by Andy Alderson

How important is realism in Mafia II and how do strike a balance between authenticity and fun?

DG: Realism is very important and with the art, sound and music you don’t really have to sacrifice that much. When it comes to gameplay though, you have to find that balance and it’s a long and iterative process.To talk specifically about the gun fights, we have a goal; every minute to minute experience should feel like a real Mafia encounter. Meaning, you don’t see the player using bazookas and taking out wave after wave of enemies. The player uses realistic Mafia weapons and takes on a “realistic” number of baddies.

Obviously, the gangster has long played a part in American popular culture but what did you use as inspiration for Mafia II? Were there any particular films or books that informed the game directly?

DG: We used lots of different references for different parts of the game.  The dialogue is heavily influenced by the show, Sopranos, the story by Goodfellas, the art direction by, Road to Perdition, the period setting by The Godfather…loads and loads of stuff. We love these movies and shows internally here and we watch so many of them. That said, we also look at other stuff that may be loosely relevant, such as Mad Men for example; a great period setting piece of work that gets it spot on.

One of the most noticeable aspects when looking at the screens is the sheer level of detail in the visuals. Did you have any trouble getting the game to run at a smooth framerate and did you have to sacrifice anything for it?

DG: Like any game development where you are trying to raise the bar, it is always massively challenging.  The level of detail in the game really is a huge achievement by the team here, it really stands out as something not done in other open world games.

How linear is the story in Mafia II? Will the player have to make any difficult decisions which will have ramifications later in the game?

DG: The story in Mafia II is a linear experience, we wanted to control the narrative and make sure that it was strong as possible so, we focused in on one linear path to ensure this.

How has the AI been tweaked in the sequel? What kind of behavior can we expect to see from the cops in the game?

DG: The first game was known for being a challenging experience and we want Mafia II to be the same.  Not to say, that we are going to insert a racing mission like in Mafia 1, but it will be a good challenge when the cops want to arrest you.  We want the player to behave realistically in our city and not to go on gun crazy rampages (this is not mafia behavior) and as such we need something that will keep them in check and the police do that.

For more on Mafia II, check out the game page here.

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