It was last month when parent company Take-Two Interactive confirmed that Hangar 13 would be revealing a new game in the coming months. While many were under the impression that the impending announcement would be related to the Mafia franchise, a new discovery suggests otherwise.
According to the official careers website, Hangar 13 is seeking an executive producer who will be responsible for delivering a “key new IP franchise” as well as post-release and future prospects of the said franchise. The job description also adds that the candidate should be highly seasoned in building triple-a open-worlds or sandbox games but without mentioning any platforms.
In summary, Hangar 13 is currently working on a brand new franchise that will feature an open-world setting and the developer wants to keep supporting that franchise for several years down the road — presumably on next-generation platforms. The sort of long-term support that is hinted here usually has to do with multiplayer. Hangar 13 made its debut with Mafia 3, which was incidentally not only single-player-only but also marred by critics for a ton of reasons.
Last September, several trademarks were filed by Take-Two Interactive for Mafia. Hangar 13 appeared to be working on Mafia 4 as well as a remastered version of Mafia 2. The months to follow further suggested the location of Mafia 4 to be Las Vegas and a release slated for 2021. Then there was a massive leak that gave away several details about character and vehicle customizations in Mafia 4.
Point being that so far, Hangar 13 was pretty much thought to be working on nothing but the Mafia franchise. In either case, an announcement should be coming in the next month or two, or at least that is what Take-Two Interactive claimed would take.
Hangar 13 went underground soon after Mafia 3 was released in 2016. Its debut title was marred for repetitive gameplay and a slew of technical issues. Hangar 13 was then hit with massive layoffs around a year before reports started surfacing that the developer had started work on a new project.
