Mafia: The Old Country – a game about the Italian mafia set in Italy and featuring an Italian accent – will apparently not have Italian voice actors.
At yesterday’s live showcase on the opening night of Gamescom, developer Hangar 13 announced that “Mafia: The Old Country” will be set back to 20th century Sicily to take a look at the origins of the bloody shootouts and criminal rivalries that ultimately gave rise to the main Mafia trilogy.
When the Mafia prequel comes out next year, it will apparently “go back to the roots of what fans love about the Mafia series” with a “deep, linear narrative,” according to studio president Nick Baynes.
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The reveal trailer offers just a brief glimpse of Sicily and a very Italian voiceover discussing the importance of family, loyalty, and other things that really matter to mafia bosses.
Despite the strong accents, some fans of the series have noticed a strange omission on Mafia: The Old Country’s Steam page. The storefront’s “Languages” chart seems to indicate that the prequel will apparently only have “full” English, French, German, Spanish, Czech, and Russian – not Italian.
Italian-speaking players can at least toggle subtitles and a localized UI on and off, but that’s about it. This is disappointing for anyone who would like to play the game with more authentic language options (I doubt Sicilians spoke broken English to each other in the 20th century).
Mafia: The Old Country is currently scheduled to be released sometime in 2025, joining publisher Take-Two’s growing list of heavyweights alongside Borderlands 4, Civilization 7 and GTA 6. So Hangar 13 still has plenty of time to say more about the game’s language options.
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