STACK NZ October 2016 Issue 78

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the American Civil War (1861-65);
the army couldn’t control the
docks so they hired a Sicilian
gangster to do that, and basically
ever since then there’s been
organised crime there.
“We call New Bordeaux our
'version' of New Orleans because
we had to make adjustments to
the city for gameplay reasons.
The real New Orleans is pretty
flat, for example, and we wanted
more variety in terms of the city’s
geography. The roads are also
narrow, which isn’t conducive
to hauling ass around the city
in a super-fast muscle car.
So we took all of the things
people know and love about
New Orleans and tweaked
them to support our vision of how
the game should look and play.”
Returning Vietnam vet Lincoln
Clay is the protagonist, who joins
an African-American organised
crime gang. When the mob is
attacked by the Italian mafia, Clay
is a man out for revenge.
“We really put a lot of effort
into making Clay a character who
evokes the specific time and place
where the game is set,” Harms
says. “His background as a highly
trained special forces Vietnam
veteran definitely plays in to how
he, from a military point of view,
executes his campaign against the
Italian mafia."
For research, Harms cites crime
flicks Goodfellas, The Godfather,
The Town and A Prophet as
primary sources, as well as
documentary Cocaine Cowboys to
reference non-fictional criminals.
“In terms of the specific
research, we did a lot of research
around the era and civil rights
so we accurately portray these
Here at STACK HQ, we
love a good mobster tale.
Whether fictional or drawn
from the annals of mafia history,
stories of organised crime will
always appeal to an audience.
This month, 2K’s Mafia franchise
returns with its third installment,
and ever since the game was
revealed back in June, interest has
been steadily building with each
new trailer.
The late 1960s is the backdrop
for Mafia III, which is set in New
Bordeaux – a fictional recreation of
New Orleans.
“New Orleans has a very long
history of Italian mafia, and that
was obviously very appealing
to us,” recounts lead writer Bill
Harms. “The first organised crime
in New Orleans happened after
Rules
Mob
Mafia III is here, ladies and spoke
with lead writer Bill Harms. Words Paul Jones
elements in the game.,” explains
Harms. “There’s a documentary
called Spies of Mississippi that's
about state governments in the
south trying to infiltrate the civil
rights movement.
“There’s also a civil rights leader
named James Baldwin, who was
in the SAS (Special Air Service),
but he made a documentary
called Take This Hammer, where
he walks around San Francisco
and interviews African-Americans
about their lives.
"Another source of information
about the time period came from
an interview with Jim Brown, a
football player who played for the
Cleveland Browns; he appeared in
Playboy magazine in 1968 in which
he talks about his experiences as
an African-American at that time."
Mafia III features nine different
districts across a huge gameplay
area, and each has been
developed so the criminal rackets
fit tonally with the part of town in
which they operate.
“One of the things that was
really important to us was
narratively tying the open world
to Lincoln’s larger mission of
destroying the Italian mob,” says
Harms.
“We spent a lot of time creating
that underlying narrative structure
for the criminal rackets, and then
marrying that with open world
gameplay, allowing players to
attack them in any order that they
want.”
And what about that
soundtrack? Not only were the
‘60s a time of prodigious social
and political change, but the
evolution of music was both rapid
and boundless. This was taken
into account when creating the
sensational soundtrack for the
game.
“A while back our audio director,
Matt Bauer, asked everyone at
Hangar 13 to pull together a wish
list of songs they would like to see
in the game, which he compiled,”
Harms tells STACK.
“In terms of the licenced songs
in the cinematics, this was largely
a group decision. We’d sit in Matt’s
office for hours at a time, laying
songs over the cinematics to
test what tonally made sense or
helped energise the scene. We’re
very happy with the result.”
• Mafia III
is out now
We took all the
things people know
and love about
New Orleans and
tweaked them
visit GAMES FEATURE
30 OCTOBER 2016
GAMES