It's still quite a few years away though.

In early May, we learned that Hangar 13 may have started work on a new entry in the Mafia franchise. The news hit when an internal email made its way out to the public following the departure of a couple of high-ranking employees. An official announcement of the game, learned to be a prequel, was not made at the time.

Today, 2K and Hangar 13 confirm that a new Mafia game is in development at Hangar 13. Unfortunately, the short announcement by Hangar 13's general manager Roman Hladík did not indicate if the next game would be a prequel or not. In fact, details are rather sparse period.

In the original rumor from May, it was said that the next Mafia game would serve as a prequel to the existing games. It was also said that this new title would be built using Unreal Engine 5 rather than using the studio's own proprietary engine that has been used for previous titles.

Hangar 13 has certainly had its share of troubles this year. As noted, in May we saw the departure of both its president and CCO Haden Blackman and their COO Matthew Urban. Later on in that same month, Hangar 13 was hit with a round of layoffs that impacted all three of their studios.

Though the critical and fan reception to Mafia 3 ended up being rather tepid, the game did sell enough. At the time, Mafia 3 actually became 2K's fastest selling title, with over 4.5 million copies shipped to retailers just in its first week of availability. Though the game itself wasn't all that great, the love of the franchise remains quite high among fans.

In honor of Mafia's 20th anniversary, 2K is making the original game available for free for the weekend on Steam starting on September 1. If you want to play the original with updated visuals, Mafia: Definitive Edition is available for 65% off until September 8.