Mafia 2 - Nasty Jobs in America

To this day, exactly nine years ago, the story of Vita Scalette and his rise in the Mafia milieu began.

Following the success of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, the Czech studio Illusion Softworks worked on several projects such as Vietcong and Hidden & Dangerous 2. At the same time, the development of Mafia 2, which was officially launched in the summer of 2007, began. A year later, Illustion Softworks became 2K Czech, and the game was delayed for a year. Nine years ago today, Mafia 2 came out for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The game was set in the town of Empire Bay in the aftermath of World War II. The story follows Italian immigrant Vito Scaletta and his existential struggles in modern society, to put it mildly. It was a story in which the concepts of family and friendship, well-being and risky lifestyles clashed.

Mafia 2 came out at a time when open worlds in gaming were not as common. Although her version of New York was extremely attractive and we could see it through different seasons, the world itself was pretty empty in terms of activity. In this respect, Mafia 2 worked best as a linear game. The missions were also able to demonstrate the then excellent capabilities of movers in the destruction segment. Mafia 2 was one of the most challenging games of the time, thanks to support for Nvidia's PhysX.


The game, after its release, was targeted by some soulmate who called for a ban on sales because it allegedly glorified mafia culture and violence. However, the ban did not come, and Mafia also became the owner of the then new record - the one by number of curses in the game. More specifically, the word “f * ck *” could be heard a total of 397 times during the game. It is also interesting that the game had officially licensed Playboy magazines at the time, ie a total of 50 covers.

Mafia 2 subsequently received three extensions (The Betrayal of Jimmy, Jimmy's Vendetta and Joe's Adventure) which later became available as part of the Digital Deluxe edition. The game was removed from Steam in 2015, but came back a year later and is now the only live version to be purchased for current platforms.