Mafia 3: Definitive Edition contains hidden bits of Berlin from a cancelled spy game

Folks rooting around in the recent release of Mafia III's Definitive Edition have found part of Berlin, a level scrap likely from a cancelled espionage game. Supposedly a project Hangar 13 started after Mafia 3, the game known as Rhapsody was never announced but whispers have leaked out before. Now here's a rough outline of Berlin, which might be the most we'll ever see of Rhapsody. That's a nice little find, though it's less nice that some players are reporting the Def Ed has brought new technical problems too.

As Kotaku reported in 2018, Hangar 13's game codenamed Rhapsody was supposedly about Cold War espionage in 80s Berlin. As Kotaku tell it, Rhapsody would star a Russian Jew who joined a spy organisation after his parents were murdered in a Soviet labour camp. He'd be sneaking around Berlin on spy missions, investigating spy things, playing with spy gadgets, driving a spy car, and trying to get spy revenge for his parents.

Given that the wildly unfinished bit of world found by fileminer "Sliderv2" here clearly has the Berlin TV Tower, seems likely that's what we're looking at here:

Not hugely exciting but hey, it's more than we'd seen before. The exact fate of Rhapsody is unclear, I think? Sounds like the idea changed a whole lot over time, with idea tossed around including becoming a superhero game, shifting location, having rhythm game-y bits... if the project still lives on, it's likely in a different form. It's not rare for big publishers to scrap projects, mind. So many more games are started than we'll ever know.

As for what's actually intended to be in Mafia III: Definitive Edition, that's a bit messier. Launched on Friday alongside a remaster of Mafia II, the Def Ed is meant to be basically the same game just with the DLC thrown in. It came as a free update, so that's nice. But a fair few player reviews on Steam are saying the game's performance has tanked. People have even more complains about Mafia II Def Ed, which is at least a separate version for folks who owned the original. Oh dear.

All that does put a dampener on the big news these Def Eds launched alongside: the first Mafia is getting a full remake in August.