During the game development process, it’s not uncommon for a story to change late for one reason or another. After all, by the time the game’s story is blocked out or made, it can be apparent that something doesn’t mesh well. Such was the case apparently for Mafia III. The game already had a lot of mature themes in it, as it was set in New Orleans in the time after Vietnam, but according to the team, the beginning was much darker originally.
The originally opening was so dark that the team didn’t just remove it from the game, they removed it from every computer in the building. This came from Andrew Wilson while doing an interview with Eurogamer.
“It literally does not exist. Because if ever that had come out without any context in any form it would have looked terrible, because disconnected from the game it’s obviously even more shocking.”
So what was the opening? Well…
“We went back at the eleventh hour and added a cold-open to the game that was a really violent prologue which basically shows Lincoln and a couple of his friends getting ambushed by the mob. It’s super-violent and Lincoln has to resort to violence to escape. This cold-open was going to explain why he left for Vietnam. He ends up killing a cop and has to flee to Vietnam.”
The team also made sure that the original opening for Mafia III wasn’t referenced throughout the rest of the game.
“Lincoln never really talks about [what happened during the cold-open]. I think we added one scene where he has a conversation with this Priest, Father James, and they talk about it a little bit, but we never really paid off on it. There were characters involved in it who he encounters later but doesn’t really acknowledge. It felt exploitative instead of something that really grabbed you and put you in Lincoln’s shoes and made you afraid for him and want to help him, so we ended up cutting it because of the feedback.”
So next time you play the game, remember that there was something different there originally.
