Dan Vávra revealed what the first mission in Mafia II -apkrig might have looked like
After years, designer Daniel Vávra had an insight into the behind-the-scenes development of Mafia II. He started working on the project shortly after the release of the first part, but due to disagreements with 2K Games, he left the development before the game was completed and his previous statements repeatedly showed that the title deviated from the original vision and some of its components did not make it to the final version. According to today’s Facebook post, this was to apply to the introductory mission, where the players in the skin of the protagonist experienced the war scene in Sicily. Although it was an unexpected start and a very fresh introduction to the game, Operation Husky quickly clears the villa and the game soon moves to Empire Bay, where the rest of it takes place. But originally it had a beginning in Sicily to draw players into a much bigger battle, and for this purpose the developers around Dan Vávra created a whole town, which they intended to use as a sophisticated backdrop.
“Do you remember the first mission in Mafia II? A colleague has now researched and published screenshots in his portfolio of what it was originally supposed to look like, “says Vávra. But then it corrects itself, noting that the pictures reveal what it really looked like, because, according to the designer, it was largely graphically finished. “It was far from just one square and a house,” he adds, and the screenshots clearly show that a possible battle was to take place in the narrow streets and a number of other houses, which in the final version can be seen only during the initial camera flight before the mission, but the player could never get close to them.
“We designed and built the whole Sicilian town, where a long battle was to take place, where the player was to ride, among other things, on Hakla (transport vehicle Sd.Kfz. 251, editor’s note) and fight with German armor and snipers. We also had those tanks and they were mobile, “says Vávra. To this end, he also traveled to Sicily to photograph the appropriate locations and study documents on the deployment of American paratroopers in the area to make the mission credible. “It simply came to our notice then. The script for this one quest has 89 pages and I wrote it for several months, “adds the designer.
Judging by the reactions below the post on Facebook, the report arouses both excitement and disappointment in the players at the same time, when they see what the introduction of Mafia II might have looked like and what the developers eventually used in the full version. This change from the original vision, together with the complete conclusion of the game, then probably contributed to the fact that Dan Vávra left the 2K Games, which he himself indirectly confirms in his contribution. “And then it wasn’t there because I don’t know why, and I left,” says the designer, who founded Warhorse Studio two years after he left and released Kingdom Come: Deliverance after years of development.
If you are not interested in the unused material from Mafia II, be sure to check out the videos from a fan nicknamed Sliderv2, who – among other things – has dealt with this deleted content in the past. Less than four years ago, information about the original version of the Sicilian map appeared on its YouTube channel, and a year later also other photos, which partially overlap with the screenshots posted by Dan Vávra on Facebook. In addition, the link from this video leads to the portfolio of Viktor Jung’s graphic artist, who may also be the colleague Vávra is talking about in today’s post.
