Against the background of the major DLC release of “Mafia: The Old Kingdom” and the release of the native version of the first remastered version of Xbox Series X | S and Playstation 5 version IGN Decided to talk to Nick Baines, President of Hangar 13 Studios. During the interview, they asked how the Mafia series compared to Grand Theft Auto, and the developer assured that the Rockstar project was not the studio’s reference point.
Baines said Hangar 13 and Mafia have their own routes and they are not equivalent to Grand Theft Auto. He believes that the comparisons between the two series mainly exist online and do not affect the studio itself or its strategy in any way. During the interview, IGN noted that Baynes was “very keen” not to discuss comparisons between Mafia and Grand Theft Auto, and he didn’t even mention Grand Theft Auto VI by name in his response.
I think we do have our own path in the studio. this [сравнение с Grand Theft Auto] It is never discussed in the context of our strategy or affects our strategy. Of course, there’s a lot of talk about the game right now, as it’s set to be released later this year! But yeah, it’s more of a network thing to be honest. Studios don’t do this. So I’m afraid we don’t have much of an answer to this question.
Mafia: The Old Kingdom game director Alex Cox previously pointed out that the two series were indeed mechanically similar in the early 2000s, but over time they took different paths. Mafia is increasingly focusing on linear storytelling, while Rockstar is developing Grand Theft Auto as a massive sandbox. Cox said the main common element across the series remains the crime theme.