Californian studio Hangar 13 is certainly not shying away from tackling racism issues in Mafia 3, set in 1968's New Bordeaux (a fictional version of New Orleans).
The protagonist, Lincoln Clay, is a biracial orphan and Vietnam war veteran who survives a murder attempt (in which the whole black mob is killed in the process) by the Italian mob and vows to get revenge by taking them all down in the process while conquering the city. In an interview with IGN, Studio Head and Creative Director Haden Blackman explained that they have implemented mechanics that will elicit a response by the police whenever Lincoln is in places he shouldn't be (as you probably know, that was common in the Southern USA at that time).
The behaviour of pedestrians and NPCs – certainly not everywhere throughout the game, but in large sections of it – there are places where if Lincoln looks out of place and seems out of place, people will react to that. There are places you can go that just being there is an offence and will elicit a police response. We aren’t so naïve to think that a single game could cure racism, but if we can get the player to think, ‘Why am I being treated differently here than in other parts of town?’ then I think we’ve done something worthwhile.
This seems certainly a good measure of the authenticity the development team is striving for with this project. As for Mafia 3 itself, we should learn a lot more via IGN's exclusive world premiere E3 2016 demo scheduled for this Sunday (June 12th) at 5.30 PM PST.
Mafia 3 will be available on October 7 worldwide for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
