All three Mafia games take place in different cities. It can be confusing when playing them because a real-world location is mentioned at least once in each title. So, you might wonder which city Mafia 1 or Mafia: Definitive Edition takes place in, even though you’ve heard it called Lost Heaven.
What city does Mafia 1 and Mafia: Definitive Edition take place in?
Despite referencing real-life locations, Mafia 1 takes place in the fictional city Lost Heaven. It’s said to be located in the Midwestern United States, though, its state is never mentioned in-game.
For years fans didn’t know where the game took place. However, in the store description on Steam, we finally got an answer:
“Part one of the Mafia crime saga – 1930s, Lost Heaven, IL
Re-made from the ground up, rise through the ranks of the Mafia during the Prohibition era of organized crime. After a run-in with the mob, cab driver Tommy Angelo is thrust into a deadly underworld. Initially uneasy about falling in with the Salieri crime family, Tommy soon finds that the rewards are too big to ignore.”
Mafia 1 takes place in Lost Heaven, IL, which is itself a fictionalized version of Chicago. While it may seem like Lost Heaven sits on an ocean, it’s actually meant to be Lake Michigan, one of the five Great Lakes. However, the city’s geographical layout isn’t too close to that of real-life Chicago. Obviously, Lost Heaven is much smaller than Chicago, but the real town is also not laid out as the one you see in the game.
Like with Empire Bay in Mafia 2, and New Bordeaux in Mafia 3, Lost Heaven is designed around gameplay concerns. As such, don’t look too closely for parallels with Chicago. Instead, think of it as being politically and socially similar to Chicago instead of geographically.
