How the game "Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven" was created: 15 interesting facts about the game (17 photos)

Nowadays, Mafia has long been a world-famous game, which almost everyone and everywhere knows and has heard about. Today's post will tell you about the history of the origin of this game and some of its advantages.





1. The history of the game "Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven" originates from the young at that time Czech studio "Illusion softworks", whose projects did not particularly "take off", except for the tactical shooter "Hidden & Dangerous" (1999).



Hidden & Dangerous

The studio received investments to create a new game, and the developers decided to make a new fantasy RPG. However, the investors were strongly against this idea. Then the artist Daniel Vavra suggested making an adventure action game on a gangster theme, that is, a game about the mafia. That's what they decided on, and Vavra eventually became one of the project managers and personally wrote the script, which played a key role in this game. By the way, the script for the game itself consisted of as many as 500 pages, and that's not counting the side quests.





Daniel Vavra

2. Naturally, when creating the game, they needed inspiration from something, and the developers decided to turn to cinema, taking ideas from such cult films as "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas".



The film "Goodfellas" (1990)

As Vavra himself said, he wanted to show the story of a young man who becomes a mafioso by chance, rises up the career ladder, and then falls to the very bottom. The most important thing is not to romanticize the mafia life, but on the contrary, to show that all gangsters end badly (sooner or later).

3. Initially, it was planned to release the game in 2000, because the guys already had a working game engine "Insanity 2", on which they created the game "Hidden & Dangerous".

But during the process of creating the game, the developers realized that the old engine did not quite meet their requirements, so they had to create a new, more technologically advanced and faster "LS3D" engine from scratch, which is why the release of the game had to be postponed for a couple of years.



But, thanks to the new engine, the developers were able to implement all their wishes. In particular, this concerned the interactive component (for example, interaction with trash cans), fairly realistic bullet marks that remained after a shootout, the ability to slow down an enemy car by shooting at the tires, etc.



There's even a fuel indicator for the cars. And if something happens, you can fill up at a gas station. However, it's unlikely that you'll ever run out of fuel. The only time I needed it was in the "Big Walk", where we got unique cars.

4. The developers wanted to make not just another shooter with a banal mission walkthrough, but a game with a variety of gameplay that would allow players to feel like they're part of this game.



Therefore, in addition to standard car driving or shootouts, we can participate in a stealth mission (robbing an official's house), racing (oh, this is a separate pain for many gamers), a date with a girl (which, however, will end in a brawl), killing with a sniper rifle, etc.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons why I loved this game and put it in the top 3 of my favorite games.

5. To create animations of facial expressions of the main characters, the developers used analog joysticks. According to the art director for the characters, Roman Khladik, it was very convenient to work with the joystick, thanks to three axes of movement. Well, for ordinary passers-by and extras, an automatic animation generator was used.



6. The game "Mafia: The city of Lost Heaven" turned out to be truly global. The gameplay is very diverse, the plot is simply amazing, realistic city life (pedestrians, traffic rules, fines, chases, etc.), several game modes (plot, walk, big walk), etc.

But besides everything else, the developers planned to introduce a casino into the game. True. for some unknown reason, the location was never included in the game. Only a little later, enthusiasts finally made this location.



Also, the game was planned to introduce a dynamic change of day and night, as well as changes in weather conditions. However, this idea never made it to implementation, so the time of day, as well as weather conditions, depend solely on the mission. Nevertheless, it was funny to watch passers-by walking under umbrellas in rainy weather.

7. By the way, a fun fact. The time on the clock in the game shows exactly the same time as on your computer. The same applies to the pocket watch on the title screen.



8. There are many references hidden in the game. As you know, the game was largely influenced by the film "The Godfather". So, the mission called "A Job You Can't Refuse" is a direct reference to this film, as is the Corleone Hotel, which actually refers us to Don Corleone.



Also, in the game you can find boxes that say "Import-Export-Scorsese". Naturally, this is a reference to the cult director Martin Scorsese, who made many films on the mafia theme, including the film "Goodfellas".

As for the museum in the last mission, it is an exact copy of the Vienna Art Museum.

9. The racing mission was incredibly difficult at the time of the game's release. How many nerves the players spent before they completed it. I admit honestly, I never completed it. My friend completed it. But after some time, the developers released a separate patch that allowed you to adjust the difficulty of the race. Oh, I wish I had this patch in 2002.



By the way, did you know that the names of your opponents in the races are the names of members of various metal bands? Now you will know.

10. I think many people know this trick, but I will still remind you. In the mission "Happy Birthday" (on the ship) you can drink whiskey on the bar counter, after which Tommy will get drunk, and for some time the game will take place in a very interesting mode.



11. The names of the cars in the game are also references. For example, the car "Shubert" is a reference to the composer Frank Schubert, the car "Falconer" is a reference to the real fighter against the mafia - Giovanni Falcone, the car "Disorder" was named after the rock band of the same name, etc.

12. The names of some characters are also full of references. The main character Tommy Angelo was named after a member of the New Jersey mafia named Tommy Angel. It is to his funeral that the main characters come. As it turns out, Tommy Angel was planning to lay out all the ins and outs about the mafia, but did not have time, as he was hit by a truck.



Don Ennio Salieri is named after two famous composers - Ennio Morricone and Antonio Salieri.

Luca Bertone got his last name in honor of the company "Bertone", which specialized in the production of cars and bodies.

Whiskey merchant William Gates is, of course, a reference to the head of Microsoft Bill Gates.

13. You can find a lot of information that sometimes, due to a bug, dog heads appeared instead of the heads of some passers-by. Personally, I have never encountered this, although I have completed this game five times, but I have still seen many confirmations of this. Have you seen such a bug?



14. Remember that in the training mission, the voice of a certain commentator told us what we should do? Well, this voice was not out of thin air. To implement it, it was necessary to introduce a separate character and hide him behind a fence. If you climb on the boxes, and then jump on the driven car and jump over the fence, then we will see this very commentator.



15. In 2020, a remaster of the game was released with modern graphics and some changes. In particular, some missions were expanded, a cover system appeared, Sam was given much more attention, making him probably even a more important character than Paulie, and the plot was supplemented, and somewhere reworked. We were even shown Tommy's grown-up daughter and son-in-law. True, I didn't like the scene of Tommy's death at the end. Horrible theatricality. In the original, it looked much more interesting.