'Mafia III' Brings Explicit Conversations About Race to Video Games

The latest 'Mafia' installment *finally* has a black protagonist.

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The term “mafia” is derived from the Sicilian word "mafiusu", which describes something that is bold or brash. And for the past 15 odd years, the Mafia video game franchise has hewn close to those distinct, Italian roots.

The first, eponymously named game (2002) in the franchise starred an Italian mobster and was set during the Great Depression. The action took place in a fictional city named Lost Heaven, an amalgamation of Chicago and San Francisco. Mafia II (2010) also starred an Italian mobster, and was set during the World War II era. This time, the action took place in Empire Bay, a clear send up of New York City. Car models, weapon models, and period clothing captured the feel of both decades, and history was the backdrop to the games’ events.

The franchise has always been about quintessentially American themes. The immigrant family’s rise to power. The birth and death of “the dream.” But despite America’s diversity, the Mafia games have always starred and featured white protagonists. Never a black protagonist. Until now.

The new Mafia III, due out October 7, heads south to the fictional city of New Bordeaux, inspired by New Orleans. The game take place during the turbulent 60’s—1968, specifically. That was the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and race riots swept the United States. That was the year Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. That was the year President Johnson signed the first hate crime legislation into law. That was the year the Ku Klux Klan declined in popularity, but began splitting into smaller, extremist groups in the process.

“The 60’s heralds the end of the Golden Age of the Italian mafia,” says Mafia III head writer Bill Harms. “When JFK became President and Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General, one of the things that Kennedy did is he really went after the mob. Because of that, you have outside groups starting to come in and you have the rise of the drug trade.”

Mafia French

In Mafia III, you play as Lincoln Clay, an orphan and Vietnam veteran whose adoptive family, the black mob in New Bordeaux, is brutally slaughtered by the Italian mob, headed by Sal Marcano. The game covers Lincoln’s quest for revenge as he rebuilds his surrogate family and destroys Marcano’s at the same time.

There are a lot of firsts in this game. This is the first Mafia game that is truly open world. During my demo, I was given a general mission—destroy and take over a local racket—but I was also given liberty on when and how to do it. This is the first Mafia game with branching narratives. Depending on who you decide to trust, the story will take permanent turns. Your lieutenant might turn on you, leaving you no choice but to kill him on his home turf.

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And then, there’s the obvious first; the explicit, head-on discussion of race. This is the first time in the Mafia franchise that the playable, main character is a black man, and it’s caused some fanbase debate over the definition of “mafia,” which most people readily associate with Italian mobsters. At first glance, one might question whether these developers should be the ones to challenge that definition. Bill Harms is white. The director, Haden Blackman, is white. Producers Andy Wilson and Denby Grace are both white. Done improperly, the entire project could have gone horribly wrong and been culturally appropriative instead of culturally attributive.

Thankfully, there is no whitewashing in the casting department—the voices for the racial minority characters are performed by racial minority actors. And Harms seems aware of the figurative minefield he is stepping into. As I broach the issues of race, he nods and repetitively responds, “Sure,” as I allude to a possible backlash. One gets the impression that he has anticipated that sort of skepticism, and he has taken pains to ensure that his script is as authentic and as beyond reproach as possible.

He’s extensively researched the history of New Orleans and the racial issues that held sway in 1968. Harms rattles off his primary and secondary sources for the script; his inspirations are diverse. There’s the landmark Playboy interview with Jim Brown, where Brown discusses being pulled over by cops for getting dust on white folks. There’s the San Francisco documentary Take this Hammer, starring James Baldwin, which gives a firsthand look at the lives and struggles of African Americans in the early 60’s. There’s the Civil Rights documentary Spies of the Mississippi, which charts the state government’s efforts to uphold segregation in The Magnolia State. 

It’s difficult, especially in 2016, to paint an accurate, sobering portrait of what it meant to be black and poor in 1968. But Harms takes this responsibility seriously; he knows race informs his characters’ worldviews—that diversity is trickier than a palette swap. It’s that complexity, in fact, that inspired him to attempt it to begin with.

“Having Lincoln [as a character] provides a very different lens to view the world through than that of an Italian guy,” says Harms. “Part of Mafia III is reclaiming what the term “mafia” is and expanding it. The interesting thing about the 60’s is that there was a tradition—primarily in Detroit, Chicago, and New York—of African American mob figures. They couldn’t be made, because they weren’t Italian. But they were associated.”

Mafia Harassment

When Lincoln turns on the car radio or walks down the streets of New Bordeaux, he can listen to conversations discussing the issues of the time. In the predominantly black neighborhood of Delray Hollow, for example, one can overhear the residents discussing the extradition of James Earl Ray. When I walked to my car in-game, I saw a woman reading a newspaper. Curious, I looked over her shoulder; she was reading an article about rising racial tensions and violence. It was a small, but immersive attention to detail.

Most notably, the game places you in several racially tinged situations where, as a black man, you are forced to confront your second class status. If you commit a crime in the predominantly white neighborhood of Frisco Fields, the cops will immediately rush to the scene when they are called. But if you commit a crime in Delray Hollow?

“The police response is determined by the section of the city that you are in,” says Harms. “The dispatcher might say, ‘Report of a stolen car in Delray Hollow. If anyone feels like checking it out, head on over there.’ And they may not come.”

It may not be fair. But it is authentic.

Lincoln will also be treated differently depending on the area he’s in. The residents of a black area might treat him with indifference, like any other citizen walking down the street. But the residents of a predominantly white area might be hostile—its residents might make remarks about Lincoln’s presence, make derogatory statements, or ask him what he’s doing there. 

This also has the ring of authenticity; the US Government outlawed segregation in 1964 and outlawed housing segregation in 1968, but the practices continued in more implicit, psychological ways. Mafia III acknowledges that complication—that equality under the law does not equate to equality in practice.

And what about the Ku Klux Klan? Fans may have noticed white-hooded figures in the latest trailer, and Harms acknowledges that yes, those figures are exactly what they look like. 

Mafia Klan

Which begs the question—how authentically did the developers portray the Klan? Do the characters use racial language? Do they use the N-Word in its most hateful context? “There’s racist language in the game,” Harms states. “It’s all part of the larger goal of making it as authentic as possible. And that [language] was part of this world.”

No half measures. You have to give the developers credit; it takes guts to portray that sort of ugliness and realness. There was no sanitized way to exist as a Southern black man in 1968. And 2K Games seems prepared to address that, head-on, to a wide audience of players, and deal with the controversy that will likely follow.

Mafia III is, based off the demo, an excellent, open-world, 3rd person shooter. The developers are working off a reliable, pre-existing formula that was pioneered by Grand Theft Auto, Hitman, and the Mafia franchise itself; that’s not what makes this game special. Rather, it’s the willingness to bluntly, objectively address America’s racial sins that might vault Mafia III into the realm of exceptionality. 

Mafia III will be released on October 7 for PC, OS X, Playstation 4, and XBox One. 

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