Will we ever see Mafia 4? What about Mafia 2 Remastered? A recent trademark filing by Take-Two Interactive suggests that the company isn’t quite done with the franchise. We may well be seeing something new, although what that new thing might be hasn’t yet been determined.
As SegmentNext reported, the trademark was filed on August 2, 2019, by Take-Two Interactive and subsequently approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It notes that the word mark “Mafia” was first used in a commercial capacity in 2002. Unsurprisingly, the trademark has this fit into the category for video games and online entertainment.
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What we know for certain is that Take-Two filed a trademark for Mafia, and that’s pretty much it. However, the fact that it made such a filing is a tell in and of itself. To start, a trademark application is not a cheap process, costing thousands (or even tens of thousands of dollars) and involving the valuable (and pricey!) time of one or more lawyers. Companies are generally reluctant to spend money unnecessarily, so the fact that it’s filed for a trademark suggests that something new could be on the way.
There’s some potential for a future game in the franchise, like Mafia 4 or Mafia 2 Remastered. A fourth game was reportedly in the works, although it got scrapped before any serious development dollars were spent on it. Supposedly, Mafia 4 was going to be set in 1970’s Las Vegas and be a sort of video game spin on the classic Scorsese film Casino.
A remaster is equally likely. A flurry of game developers have turned to prettying up their back catalog in recent years, with everything from Final Fantasy 7 to Resident Evil getting the remaster treatment. It’s just as possible that Take-Two Interactive decided that a glitzier version of Mafia 2 would do well today.
The third (and saddest) possibility is that, for some reason, Take-Two decided to simply file the trademark in case it ever wants to make another game in the future but with no firm plans to do so. If the company is working on something, we can probably expect to hear about it in the coming months and years.
