I love the mobster genre in all forms of media, but not nearly as much as production companies do. From The History Channel, to movie studios and more, there is always a “new” take on Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and the like. But playing as a mobster, that’s the coup de gras. After an inspired, but still not ready for primetime entry game, Mafia II dropped in 2010 to mixed review. A gorgeous game, with some nice physics semi-destructible environments. The game was pretty short (maybe 5-6 hours tops), and had some narrative hitches along the way, but was still a worthwhile play for the most part. What I remember distinctly though…Its treatment of People of Color. It was rough, fam.
The few appearances of Black people in the game were shells that just served as bullet fodder when the story had you go to a “bad” neighborhood. But that paled in comparison to the way AAPI were treated. There’s a prison sequence where you deal with many Asian-Americans and the portrayal of them was how you say…embarrassing. But hey, just some White gangstas doing some White gangsta shit. Nothing to see here.
But it’s five years later and the sequel that nobody asked for might be the one to look forward to. After all that not giving a damn about people of color for the first two games, Mafia 3‘s protagonist is a biracial badass by the name of Lincoln Clay.
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Lincoln has seen some things fam. Grew up in the 50s and 60s New Orleans, went to Viet Nam, came back and had some White folks fuck with his family. Nah, b. Not only do we get some diversity with Lincoln, but from the Trailer, it looks like Lincoln diversified his crew as well.
Racist South, the Confederacy or wanna be Gangsters might not stand a chance fam.
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