Personally, I’m a big believer in cultural authenticity and not knowing what’s going on, which is why I play games like Assassin’s Creed, Metro 2033, and Indika in the local language. Why would I listen to British or American voice actors imitating accents when I could hear the game’s script in proper German, Spanish, or Russian?
Unfortunately, I won’t have that option in the upcoming Mafia: The Old Country, the fourth game in the Mafia series and the second (or third, if you count the remake of Mafia 1) from developer studio Hangar 13. Fans were a little baffled to find that – in The Old Country’s language list on the Steam page – it’s set to come with full dubbing in English, French, German, Spanish, Czech and Russian, but no Italian. This is despite the fact that The Old Country is about the origins of organized crime in Sicily and every previous game in the series – including the one set in a fake New Orleans – has had that option. That’s right, folks:
If you want Italian, you’ll only find it as an interface and subtitle option, not audio. I may be making fun of this, but the decision is a little disappointing. I imagine there’s a line graph somewhere in the 2K or Hangar 13 office showing that an Italian dub just isn’t worth the resource investment, but I’ve always liked playing games in their “proper” languages. And I’m not the only one. “The disrespect is insane,” writes Twitter user SagamiSword_, “How can you make a game about Mafia, set it in Italy, and not dub it in Italian, even though previous Mafia games have been dubbed in that language?”
It’s not hard to find other fans who share the disappointment. “Why no Italian dubbing?” asks a Twitter user named RealNova00, “in a game set in (Italy)?”
“I’m Italian and this is pretty disrespectful. We invented Mafia and we have the best voice actors in the world. I don’t want to hear Americans trying to imitate the Italian accent,” wrote another user named th3l4stproph3t. “This is really sad. It might be stupid, but I’ve always preferred to consume media in its ‘original language,'” writes one disappointed Reddit user, while others in the same thread hope that an Italian dub will appear after the game’s release.
I hope so too, but either way I will be sad not to experience my first playthrough of the game in authentic Italian. I have a immense I have a soft spot for Mafia 3 – a crazy game that I absolutely loved – so I’m looking forward to this one anyway. I just wish I could play it with a little Spreader.
Anyway, I have contacted 2K to ask them about their reasons for dropping the language of love and will update this article if I receive a response.
