Eating out is bad for health. Historical accuracy in Mafia: Definitive Edition

The restaurant shootout is one of the most memorable moments in both Mafia and Coppola's movie. In The Godfather, it is a slow, tense scene of a cold, ruthless execution performed by Michael, youngest son of Don Corleone, who had nothing to do with his family's mafia activities before. That very moment is the prelude to a bloody war between the Italian families.

The developers of Mafia, on the other hand, bet on momentum and spectacularity, as well as iconic themes. So we have a quiet Italian restaurant and an idyllic meal that is brutally interrupted. Grim-looking men dressed in elegant hats and trench coats, worn only to hide the famous Tommy Guns, get down to business. As bullets start flying, the restaurant is methodically being turned into swiss cheese. The bold action is the game's climax, which begins a merciless open war between the Salieri and Morello families.

Gentlemen with guns always mean trouble.

Both scenes appear to be an apparent reference to the aforementioned execution of Joe Masseria, one of the most iconic mafia murders in history. To this day, it is not known exactly how the whole operation unfolded or how it was prepared. Was it Masseria himself who invited his protégé Lucky Luciano to the restaurant, or was he persuaded by a traitor? Either way, on April 15, 1931, after Masseria's bulletproof car was parked in a nearby lot, the two showed up at Nuova Villa Tammaro in Brooklyn to eat and play cards. At one point Luciano excused himself and went to the toilet (just like Michael in the movie), leaving the boss alone. Then the assassins – Vito Genovese, Bugsy Siegel, Albert Anastasia and Joe Adonis – entered the room and riddled Masseria with bullets. The perpetrators were never formally identified or sentenced.

The Italian mafia and GTA

A reference to five Italian mafia families can also be found in GTA IV. In Liberty City, a parody of the New York made by Rockstar Games, there is a syndicate organization bringing together five Italian families: Gambetti, Ancelotti, Messina, Pavano and Lupisella.)

Joe Masseria's body after the restaurant massacre. Although the gangster was actually playing cards at the time of assassination, it is likely that the ace was inserted into his hand after the fact to make the picture look better. Source: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Let's drink to the mistakes – Prohibition era

When writing about Mafia: Definitive Edition and its references to reality, one cannot fail to mention one of the key themes, namely the Prohibition in the United States. An official ban on the production, sale and transport of alcohol was in force from 1920 to 1933. Despite some positive aspects of the prohibition, such as fewer alcohol-related illnesses and fewer cases of domestic violence, top-down restrictions obviously were not followed by lower demand for alcohol. This was taken advantage of by criminal organisations, who took to production and distribution of "firewater" full-time - and there was no shortage of eager customers, especially in large cities.

The Mafia opened its own clubs and bars where illegal alcohol was served, and fat bribes for law enforcement provided relative peace to such establishments. In Chicago alone, Al Capone's organization reportedly controlled all of the city's bars, or ten thousand venues. In New York, their number was even higher. Not only Italian families, but also gangs of other nationalities, such as the Irish, fought for millions of dollars that could be earned on alcohol. Prohibition provided criminals with far greater profits than gambling, prostitution, paid protection or extortions.

Some of the police were corrupt, but there were regular slip-ups.

The result was deadly competition. Gangsters would hijack each other's alcohol shipments, extort paid protection in exchange for leaving someone's business in peace, or simply liquidate the drivers and escorts. The biggest liquor smuggler in New York City was Frankie Yale, Al Capone's man who competed mainly with the Irish organization White Hand Gang. Profits from the prohibition were also instrumental in the rise of the two aforementioned groups of the American mafia: Masseria and Maranzano.

One of the main sources of illegal alcohol was the nearby Canada. This fact is strongly emphasized in Mafia. In the mission called "A trip to the country", consigliere Frank instructs Tommy to pick up a shipment from Canada, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. At the scene, it is revealed that the Canadian crew has been murdered by corrupt policemen, and the shipment was intercepted by a rival family. In another mission, Don Salieri attempts to replace the lost source from Canada with illegal products from Kentucky, which again ends in an armed confrontation.

The illegal alcohol drunk in nightclubs was often paid for with blood spilt in gang wars.

Just another mafia day during the Prohibition. It is good that we can only witness these events as gamers and researchers of history. And it's even better that we can follow them in a unique game like Mafia. And twice – in the original City of Lost Heaven and the remade Definitive Edition.