Hangar 13 is developing Mafia 4, it is been reported this week. The report also claimed that it is being developed in Unreal Engine 5, instead of the in-house game engine used for the remasters of the games. Now though, a new claim indicates that Mafia 4 won’t actually be set in America, but in Sicily instead.
As spotted by DualShockers, Shpeshal Nick, a known insider, claimed on the XboxEra podcast that Mafia 4 will be a prequel. And in some classic mafia stylings, it will be set in Sicily, Italy, with a focus on how Don Salieri and how comes to power. Interestingly, this next Mafia game won’t be as big and non-linear as Mafia 3.
Rather, it will be more like Mafia 2, which didn’t really have an open world. Nick did make a point that this is all just “rumors and mumbling,” and “never 100%“. And he’s not actually played a Mafia game before himself, so he isn’t certain about the relevance of the crime family to the story.
According to Nick’s source though, in terms of the time course, you should think very late 19th century or very early 20th century. Rather than the mob boss central, that was the 1930s. But as Nick himself said, this is just a whisper, for now, so best to take it with a pinch of salt and wait for the actual news from the studio.