00:07I'm Aaron from 2K and I'm joined by the epic Bill from Hangar 13. How are you Bill?
00:12I'm doing very well.
00:13Amazing, cool. So we're at E3. What do you think of the feedback so far?
00:18It's been kind of overwhelming actually. People love the booth. They love the, you know, that we kind of created
00:24like this mini slice of Bourbon Street.
00:25Fortune tellers, like I got my fortune told. And then obviously, you know, the big thing is showing people an
00:31extended demo of the game, a slice of the open world and also part of the mission where you go
00:37after Uncle Lou, who's Sal Marcona's brother.
00:40And from what I've heard, everyone who's seen it has just been, you know, glowing in their praise.
00:45Amazing. So now, for those that don't know, you're actually quite an integral part of the Mafia 3 journey, right?
00:52So do you want to tell everyone a bit about what you go up to at Hangar 13?
00:55Sure. So I'm the lead writer. So essentially, I kind of oversee all the narrative elements in the game and
01:02that, you know, that runs the gamut from the cinematics to, you know, systemic combat barks.
01:09And, you know, also we do a lot of work with the UI. And there's myself and then there's two
01:14other writers, Ed Fowler and Charles Webb, you know, and we just kind of mix things up, writing mission scripts,
01:21cinematic scripts, all those things.
01:23Amazing. So, you know, Mafia 3 is quite unique. It's its own story at the same time, but it also
01:30absorbs, you know, some of the narrative from Mafia 2 as well.
01:34I mean, how is that on the research chart of things to make sure you strike a fine balance for
01:38new and old players?
01:39Well, I think one of the most important things that we kind of attach ourselves to is just understanding what
01:45Mafia is as a franchise.
01:47So it's taking what we call a gifted antihero and then placing them in a very specific slice of American
01:53history.
01:54So obviously Mafia 2 is Vito Scaletta and he's in post-war America and in this case it's Lincoln Clay
02:01and he's in 1968, you know, which is a very turbulent time.
02:06You know, there's assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, you know, there are riots, there's the Vietnam War,
02:13the civil rights things going on.
02:15You know, it's a totally new story with Lincoln and everything, but we're still maintaining what people liked about the
02:21franchise, which is capturing that very specific time.
02:24So one of the biggest things about Mafia 3 as well is actually the city of New Bordeaux itself.
02:30It's quite magnificent, it's very varied and its inhabitants are also very different as well.
02:35And three of those are the underbosses of Lincoln Clay.
02:40So what would they like to design as characters and how rich are their backstories?
02:45We actually spent a lot of time on their backstories.
02:49So the three underbosses are Cassandra, who heads up the Haitian gang, Thomas Burke, who heads up the Irish mob,
02:56and Vito Scaletta, the protagonist from Mafia 2.
03:01And one of the things we really strove for in creating them is ensuring that they, as characters, that they
03:09had their own motivations for the things that they want.
03:13And also that they had a very clear reason for why they would join Lincoln in his crusade against Sal
03:20Marcano.
03:21So, you know, like we like to say, one of Lincoln's gifts is that he's able to bring very disparate
03:25people together and unify them toward a common goal.
03:29Even if those people don't like each other.
03:31They really don't like each other.
03:33You know, we showed a bit of a sit-down, you know, in Vito's, you know, Badmouth and Burke.
03:40So, you know, at the end of the day, they're all kind of, you know, they're all criminals and they're
03:44all greedy.
03:45But like I said, you know, Lincoln's been able to unite them.
03:47We saw during the IGN gameplay demo, there was a very interesting sit-down where Burke isn't too happy at
03:55the end of it.
03:55And can you tell us a bit about how those relationships can turn sour?
04:00Yeah, so as you play through the game, you can assign out one of the nine districts to one of
04:07the underbosses.
04:10And one of the things we're really trying to do is, you know, have these really deep, rich characters in
04:17terms of the underbosses.
04:18So you're like, hey, you know what?
04:19I really like Burke.
04:20You know, I think he's a cool character.
04:23Or I really like Vito.
04:25And then you kind of introduce a conflict in that, well, you may like Vito, but Burke offers you a
04:32service, like getting the police off your tail.
04:35So it's this balancing act of like, well, I like Vito, but I really want this thing that Burke gives
04:39me.
04:40And depending on how the player basically assigns those districts, it can turn, one of the underbosses, you know, you
04:47can turn them against you.
04:50So in the case that you're talking about, Cassandra and Vito had received all the districts at that point.
04:55And Burke was like, I'm done.
04:57What a sad, miserable fool I am for ever believing in you.
05:00But there will be no more of my foolishness.
05:03And then basically at that point, they kind of revolt against Lincoln and he has to deal with it.
05:08Did you have a eureka moment where you knew that this was a story that you were going to tell?
05:13And it was kind of, you know, where it became complete and you knew this is what he was going
05:18to pursue?
05:18I do.
05:20There's a, in fact, it's written on my whiteboard at work and we show it in the trailer and it's
05:24when Georgie turns to Lincoln and he says, you shouldn't have said no.
05:27So on my whiteboard, it says, you shouldn't have said no.
05:30And that was the moment where everything kind of crystallized in terms of their relationship.
05:36You know, Lincoln always thought Georgie was his friend.
05:39And it just contains a lot of weight.
05:43Can you talk us through the process of how, you know, the narrative side and gets fed into what the
05:49folks do with the gameplay?
05:51We had a pretty extensive offsite and it was about, I don't know, it felt like a year, but it
05:57was, it was about two and a half weeks.
05:59And it was myself and Matthias, who's the design director, Hayden and Andy, and then, you know, various leads.
06:06And basically we just broke down the entire game.
06:09So we came up with the game structure of, you know, hey, you go into downtown and there's going to
06:14be rackets there and you're going to take down the rackets.
06:17And then, you know, everything in the open world ties into your, you know, your revenge quest against Markano.
06:22And then how we would feed off of that in terms of like the set piece missions.
06:27What do you hope people take from Mafia 3 as a complete experience narratively from gameplay point of view and
06:33just from a tonal point of view?
06:36We spent a lot of work capturing the era of 1968 and, you know, there's a lot of emphasis placed
06:44on obviously who Lincoln is as a character, you know, the civil rights era and stuff like that.
06:49But it even goes down to, you know, the signs in the game, the art.
06:54We have radio commercials and we have quite a few radio commercials and they're historically accurate.
07:00So they're modeled after, you know, radio commercials back then were so cheesy and corny.
07:04So to our ears, they sound like kind of funny, but they're error appropriate.
07:08So like we, you know, we spent a lot of time kind of fine tuning all those elements across the
07:14game, even the weapons.
07:15Like, hey, are the weapons accurate to the time?
07:17So I just hope that they really take away, like, you know, it's a good experience for them and, you
07:21know, like the previous Mafia games, it really gives them a taste of what it may have been like to
07:25play as a character, in this case, Lincoln Clay, in that specific city, in that specific year.
07:30Well, thank you very much.
07:31Thank you, sir.
07:32We hope you look forward to Mafia 3 coming October 7th.
07:34Mafia 3 coming October 7th.
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