Mafia III Had An Opening So Shocking It Had To Be Literally Destroyed

If you played Mafia III, you will know that it never shied away from controversy and tackling mature themes. Accompanying a slab of raw and intense violence, was heavy subjects, such as racism and war.

It earns its mature rating. That said, apparently the game originally had a different opening, which eventually was scrapped for being even too much for Mafia III and its developer Hangar 13.

According to executive producer on the game, Andrew Wilson, the original opening was so shocking and controversial that it literally had to be destroyed.

"That whole [Mafia III] cold-open has been burned from our servers," said Wilson while speaking to Eurogamer. "It literally does not exist. Because if ever that had come out without any context in any form it would have looked terrible, because disconnected from the game it's obviously even more shocking.

"We went back at the eleventh hour and added a cold-open to the game that was a really violent prologue which basically shows Lincoln and a couple of his friends getting ambushed by the mob. It's super-violent and Lincoln has to resort to violence to escape. This cold-open was going to explain why he left for Vietnam. He ends up killing a cop and has to flee to Vietnam."

Wilson, who clearly is leaving out some of the finer details, continues, noting that a substantial part of the issue was said opening felt removed and isolated from the rest of the game.

"Lincoln never really talks about [what happened during the cold-open]. I think we added one scene where he has a conversation with this Priest, Father James, and they talk about it a little bit, but we never really paid off on it. There were characters involved in it who he encounters later but doesn't really acknowledge. It felt exploitative instead of something that really grabbed you and put you in Lincoln's shoes and made you afraid for him and want to help him, so we ended up cutting it because of the feedback."

At the end of the day, it's a shame we will never get to see this cut opening, but we did get to see plenty of other "stuff" throughout Mafia III, which despite all of its problems, does truly deliver a strong narrative that takes on some pretty heavy topics and depictions.

Mafia III is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Hangar 13, who recently expanded its operations, is said to be working on a brand-new AAA IP.