‘New Mafia game early in development’

It was recently announced that the head of Hangar 13 is leaving the studio. After seven years, Haden Blackman is leaving. That doesn’t mean much in itself, but according to Kotaku Blackman’s departure coincides with the development of a new Mafia game.

Hangar 13 is a 2K studio that has only worked on Mafia so far. In 2016 the studio came up with Mafia IIIafter which in 2020 the remastered Mafia trilogy was released. Since then, at least one new project has been worked on, but it has been cancelled.

So now the studio would go back to Mafia. Little is known about it, but the project would be codenamed Nero and the game would be a prequel to the earlier trilogy. The game’s existence has not been officially confirmed.

Technical leap for Mafia 4?

If we are to believe Kotaku’s reports, the new Mafia game may be making a big leap. It would be made in Unreal Engine 5, after the previous projects of Hangar 13 were all made in the Mafia III engine. It seems to be a trend to move to Unreal Engine 5 for a fourth game, because also The Witcher 4 and the fourth modern Tomb Raider going to use this engine.

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