15 Cool Facts You (Probably) Didn’t Know About the Mafia Series

The Godfather reference – In the first game, mission eight sees you go to a hotel called ‘The Corleone,’ a nice little nod to the 1972 classic movie, The Godfather.

License Plate Duplication – For one reason or another, all of the cars in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven ran the same license plates.

Staff Gangsters – Each collectible wanted poster in Mafia II was one of the development team’s staff member depicted as a gangster.

Fast Healin’ – In Mafia II’s ‘Buzzsaw’ mission, Joe comments on Vito’s ability to heal incredibly quickly. A neat little reference to the game’s health regeneration system.

God Save the Who? – Mafia II’s radio reporter often talked about the British bombing of a Nazi factory and states the British national anthem is “God Save the Queen.” At the time the game is set, between 1945-1951, King George VI was still alive. The anthem only changed to “God Save the Queen” in 1952, one year after the events of the game.

A Crooked Cop – It was recently revealed that one of the original concepts thrown around for Mafia III’s storyline involved a crooked cop protagonist. It was also considered that Lincoln would make a return to Empire Bay from Mafia II.

Heavy Metal Racers – When completing a race in the first game, the names of your opponents were taken from notable heavy metal musicians such as Mark “Barney” Greenway of Napalm Death or Kirk Windstein of Crowbar.

The Successors Finish the Job – The two hitmen who kill Tommy Angelo at the end of the first game are the two protagonists of Mafia II, Joe Barbaro, and Vito Scaletta.

A Double Act – The same scene actually appears again in Mafia II, and sees you sending Mr. Salieri’s regards to Tommy Angelo.

Fight Club – According to some leftover files in the game, it seems as though there was going to be a fight club in the game. You remember the first rule though, right?

Holy F*** – Mafia II drops the F bomb 397 times throughout the entirety of the game. It broke the Guiness World Record formerly held by House of the Dead: Overkill with 200 instances.

Final Appearances – Mafia II’s judge was voiced by Bob Hastings, and was his final voice acting credit before he sadly passed away in 2014.

Only $10? – Loading a box of crates for $10 sounds like a pretty rough deal, right? Well, Vito definitely thought so in Mafia II, however he definitely didn’t have room to complain. Considering in 1945 the average wage was less than a dollar an hour, $10 for crate loading was incredibly worthwhile.

Video Game Chatter – When creeping past the goons of Mafia II, they could sometimes be heard talking about how great video games would be. The dialog was as below.

“I was watching cartoons on the television and I was thinking, it would be great it you could control the cartoon, make him run around, drive a car and even shoot a gun

“Just how would you do that then wise guy?

“I dunno, I supposed you’d have a box with buttons on it you’d have to push”

Back to the Future – Mafia II actually featured a number of cars, songs, and items that wouldn’t have been around at that time. The songs by Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly didn’t come out until after 1951, Playboy magazine wasn’t founded until 1953, and intermittent windscreen wipers weren’t invented until 1963. Looks like Vito and Co. were fond of time traveling too.