Sometimes things just click, even if they go against the grain of the basis for something considered sacred. In this case, thatis Mafia III and how it’s going against the grain is in its setting, its development makeup and its main character.It’s also not being wholly handled by 2K Czech for the first time in the series’ long history (though they’re responsible for the tech the game is running on, along with other areas of the game’s development). Instead, a newly-created studio based in San Francisco called Hangar 13 has taken the reigns and, based on what I saw of it out at Gamescom recently -- and believe me when I say this isn’t said lightly -- its debut title could be a GTA killer, Mafia III is looking that good.When all of this was announced, a lot of concern appeared to seep from the Mafia hardcore, and rightly so. A new studio is one thing, but the revelation that we’d moved out of the 40s and 50s and into the 60s with a mixed-race Vietnam vet, who is also an orphan, as the main protagonist, was more than enough to raise a few alarms. But as was the case in tying the original Mafia to Mafia II, Mafia III carries with it a thread that promises to maintain both the foundation for why these games are so highly regarded in the first place, with a sense of progression befitting the age of technology we’re now in, and by making sure the core values reflect the topic and context at hand. In other words, it might be a different era with a different main character who isn’t specifically a member of the mob, but the game’s setting allows for an exploration of the titular organisation in a way that’s never been done before, but it’s on-point.“There are two interesting things about the period,” explains executive producer Andy Wilson. “First, it’s that age where the Mafia stops meaning ‘traditional Italian mob’, and you start seeing a lot more competing influences coming in, particularly in the US. Varying combinations of struggles for power.“But also that decade and particularly that year (1968) was one of the most tumultuous in US history,” he adds. “And Mafia is about this kind of curated narrative; about this character and his journey, but also the world has to feel seamless, and to do that, a lot of it comes from the time-period because you want the environmental storytelling to be constantly reminding you where and when you are. And with a lot of what was happening [in 68] with Vietnam and the racial politics, it allows us to bring the world to life in a lot of different ways outside of the main narrative.“Once we got into that mindset of where and when we wanted the game set, the city choice was fairly easy. You know, if we’re going to have a mixed-race character in the deep south in 1968, what kind of iconic cities do we have to play with? And New Orleans was definitely one of those cities.”While we’re not specifically going to be presented with a 1:1 representation of New Orleans, it’s iconic enough even from a visual standpoint to reflect the game’s real-world influence. Still, the studio maintains this is a fictional space which has allowed them a lot of design freedom to ensure traversal, exploration and infiltration are as engaging as possible. In particular, an example we saw in our demo set Lincoln Clay, the game’s protagonist (or anti-hero), to task bringing down a drug den (or cistern). It was a huge interior space that required no loading from the game-world proper and purportedly had numerous entry points, all available to the player based on different types of gameplay -- from information-gathering, to plain outright stumbling upon them. Initially he went in as stealth as all get up, but as things tend to do in gameplay demos, the shit hit the fan and we were shown the other reason Lincoln was chosen for the main role of Mafia III.“We wanted a character with the tools to be able to take on the mob,” explains creative director Haden Blackman. And it makes sense. With Lincoln’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict and his desire to “belong” having been abandoned as an orphan, there’s a sense of a character with nothing to lose and everything to gain. His size and attitude are almost an antithesis to the sleek, clean-cut look of members of the Mafia. He’s brutal too. The game offers contextual options for up-close-and-personal takedowns that are the most violent I’ve ever seen in a videogame. Two lines from my notes during our demo read “this game is the real fucking deal” and “fucking knifed a dude in the face, it was brutal -- holy shit”.“The hit reactions are awesome, right?” Wilson enthuses when I ask about the game’s brutal combat. “If you shoot a guy in the leg he’ll hobble and if you shoot someone in the shoulder he’ll spin around. it makes the combat feel more…“The [takedowns] are all also contextual, it’s not scripted. We mo-capped every instance, and the takedowns themselves are based on what weapon you’re currently equipped with and of the two weapons you currently have selected as well, so which weapon you’re equipped with, which weapon the AI is equipped with and what type of archetype that [AI] character is. So there’s this big matrix of what these takedowns will be. We’ll also be adding in stealthy and non-lethal stuff in there as well.”It’s a side of the game I honestly wasn’t expecting, because everything we’d been shown up until that point was more about the life of the game-world around you. Police stopping minority groups on the street for no reason, serviceman walking around, drunks and layaboutsabout. The place is as alive as the New Orleans I’ve been fortunate enough to visit, only with a truly unique vibe thanks to the era in which the game is set.“So there’s a whole bunch of different districts and the density does change from district to district,” Wilson tells me when I ask about the size and variance of the city. “The French quarter is very narrow streets and confined, but we obviously still want it to be good for driving so we try and get the balance right between having it closed quarters and old-worldly versus being able to drive down the street. There are also more industrial areas of the world and they lend themselves to some of the bigger hideouts. And then the Bayou is very large -- it’s on the southern end of the city and we’re going to be doing some different types of activities down there. You know, you’ve got boats in the game so…”.I cut him off over-enthusiastically at the prospect of being able to use what I referred to as “those big fan boats?!?”, or as they’re actually known Airboats, but Andy answers me with the same amount of enthusiasm and confirms with an “exactly”. We’re on the same page.In any open-world game of this nature, vehicles are going to play a big part, and so it’s great to hear boats will be a part of that side, too. Cars are obviously equally important, and while you won’t be driving a Mustang per se, the care you will drive certainly looks like the muscle you’d want from the era. Andy also confirms that there will be car ownership and that it’s tied to a reward system with customisation, but what they will actually entail isn’t divulged.There’s a sequence we see that also highlights the importance of vehicles beyond getting from point A to B, which involves driving recklessly in order to scare an informant you’ve nabbed for more information. It’s another area of the game Haden highlights as an important gameplay system during our demo, and it’s likely you’ll be interrogating, bribing and more throughout the experience for valuable information, which does create a greater sense of player-agency beyond any of the previous games. How deep, and how much choice is here though, will remain to be seen.Moreover, allies look to be a major part of the game, as Lincoln and co are essentially going up against the Mafia in Mafia III. It was also another worrying component drawn from the game’s reveal trailer , which shows off some of Lincoln’s friends joining him at the trailer’s close. People began wondering if there’d be a co-op or multiplayer addition to the game, thankfully, however, there isn’t“We’re single-player enthusiasts,” Wilson asserts. “It’s how I grew up and Haden is the same, and we’re at this point now where these games are so big that you can’t split your focus -- there’s a good reason multiplayer-only games have started cropping up all over the place.“There’s probably a great Mafia game thatexist as a multiplayer game, but if we ever do something like that I’d want it to have the focus that it needs.”To finish up, I ask the all-important question about audio, because if there’s one standout that is going to drive newcomers to this game, it’s in its soundtrack. They already had me once I heard “” in the reveal, but as Andy tells me, that’s just the beginning.“We have our wish-list,” he says of the game’s potential tracklist. “And that’s 100s and 100s of songs, and we’re working with our publishing department but we’re trying not to send them bankrupt as well.”And with that, the game’s potential is absolute. It’s a bold move to essentially remove the romanticism of rising through the mob ranks as a member of the Mafia, and even more bold to flip the script on its head with a mixed-race toughnut going after them more directly. But all the ingredients are in place to make this one of the most standout open-world games in recent times, which is saying a lot when you consider the pedigree of the genre of late, but I honestly walked away from my demo and chat with Andy a believer, and there was no hesitation in my calling Mafia III my game of the show at Gamescom. From here on out, 2016 and “those big fan boats” can’t come quick enough.