Video games have long explored the excess of modern day Americana. The cracked black mirror of Grand Theft Auto, the technological terror of Watch Dogs, even the ooh-rah jingoism of Call of Duty and a glut of other war games. For all of their systems and focus on blockbuster action, games often take a skewed look at the world we find ourselves in.

It is rarer, however, for a game to take a look back in time to explore the underpinnings of American society. Its rich history and troubled past, of divides that are reflected in even today’s Presidential carnival.

Set in 1968, the video game Mafia III takes place during a time of immense socio-political upheaval in the States. JFK is five years dead, sapping trust in federal government; the Vietnam war rages impotently in the East; the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. has fired the racial tensions he worked so hard against.