Mafia

Moderate overall intensity
Highest flag: Substances — player uses or trades
AdventureHistoricalShooter

What's in it

Substances player uses or trades
High

Set during Prohibition; characters smoke and drink, and missions involve moving and dealing in illegal liquor.

Violence realistic
Moderate

Realistic third-person gunfights and beatings against human gangsters and police, with blood but no dismemberment or gore focus.

Dark themes intense
Moderate

A somber gangster tragedy of betrayal, murder, and one man's rise and fall in organized crime.

Crime & lawlessness player commits crime
Moderate

The player works as a mob enforcer, carrying out killings, extortion, robbery, and smuggling for the Salieri family and is paid for it.

Language moderate
Moderate

Period gangster dialogue includes moderate profanity in cutscenes and combat.

Torture referenced
Low

A harbor mission features an underworld figure characterized as a sadistic torturer; brutality toward captives is part of the story's tone.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Mafia is a story-driven action-adventure set in the fictional city of Lost Heaven during the 1930s Prohibition era. You play Tommy Angelo, a cab driver drawn into the Salieri crime family, alternating between period-accurate driving across the city and third-person, cover-based gunfights. As a mob enforcer you commit a range of crimes for pay — shootings, beatings, robberies, arson, and running illegal liquor. Combat is realistic and shows blood but not gore or dismemberment; enemies are mostly rival gangsters and police. The world is steeped in cigarettes, alcohol, and bootlegging, the dialogue carries moderate profanity, and the plot turns on betrayal, murder, and a grim rise-and-fall arc, including a mission involving a character depicted as a sadistic torturer. The game is entirely single-player with no online features or purchases.

How it's framed

The narrative frames organized crime as seductive but ultimately ruinous, following Tommy from reluctant recruit to disillusioned insider; wealth and loyalty are shown to come at the cost of violence, guilt, and betrayal rather than being glorified without consequence.

Details

Developer
Illusion Softworks
Publisher
2K
Released
Aug 28, 2002
Metacritic 88critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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