Personally, I'm a big believer in both cultural authenticity and in not knowing what's going on. That's why I play games like Assassin's Creed, Metro 2033, and Indika in the native languages of their settings. Why should I listen to British or American voice actors affect accents when I could hear the game's script in proper Deutsch, Español, or Russkii?
Alas, I'll have no such option in the upcoming Mafia: The Old Country, the fourth game in the Mafia series and the second (or third, if you count the Mafia 1 remake) from dev studio Hangar 13. Fans have been a little perplexed to find that—in The Old Country's list of languages on its Steam page—it's set to launch with full audio dubbing in English, French, German, Spanish, Czech, and Russian, but no Italian. This despite the fact that The Old Country is about the origins of organised crime in Sicily, and every previous game in the series—including the one set in a fake New Orleans—had the option. That's right, folks:
If you want Italian, you'll only find it as an interface and subtitle option, not audio. I might poke fun, but the decision is a little disappointing. I imagine there's a line graph somewhere in 2K or Hangar 13's office that shows an Italian dub just isn't worth the resource investment, but I've always liked playing games in their 'proper' languages. I'm not the only one, either. "The disrespect is insane," writes Twitter user SagamiSword_, "How do you make a game about Mafia, set it in Italy and not dub it in Italian despite previous Mafia games being dubbed in the language?"
It's not hard to find other fans who share the disappointment. "Why no Italian dub?" asks a tweeter named RealNova00, "In a game set in [Italy]?"
"I’m Italian and this is pretty disrespectful, we invented Mafia and we have the best dub actors in the world, I don’t want to hear Americans trying to replicate the Italian’s accent," wrote another user using the name th3l4stproph3t. "That's really sad. It may be stupid but I've always preferred to consume media in its 'original' language," writes a disappointed Reddit user, while others in the same thread hope that an Italian dub will be forthcoming after the game releases.
I hope so too, but either way I'll be sad not to experience my first run-through of the game in authentic Italiano. I have an immense soft spot for Mafia 3—a wonky game that I absolutely adored—so I'm looking forward to this one regardless. I just wish I'd be able to play it with a little sprezzatura.
Anyhow, I've reached out to 2K to ask for its reasoning behind not including the language of love, and I'll update this piece if I hear back.
