MY ROLE
HANGAR 13, 2K in BRIGHTON, ENGLAND
I started working on Mafia: The Old Country in January 2024, and the game was released on August 8th, 2025.
I joined the team mid-production, 1,5 years before release, so I was able to shape the player experience from a relatively early stage and to ship the game.
LAUNCH TRAILER:
FULL GAME:
WIREFRAMES & MOCKUPS
DESIGN STRUCTURE
For a fast and smooth workflow, I create wireframes in early development and later detailed mockups for new UI menus and gameplay features.
This was used to confirm with Gameplay Designers the player experience and with Engineers if it was possible to implement, as well as creating priorities and work planning.
PAUSE MENU
MENU STRUCTURE
Organising the options on the pause menu, we set up a new order of the content that fit better for the type of content and allowed for new items to be added in seamlessly later as the game grew. Future-proofing the design.
I also set up the design for when the menu options should be locked, and implemented this in Unreal.
COSTOMIZATION MENUS
INVENTORY & PURCHASES
Across the game, we have several real objects that can be interacted with to open new menus. They use the same menu structure to keep it familiar and the UI simple to understand, so players can focus on the 3D object in the middle.
Wardrobe (character outfits), Garage (Cars), Stable (Horses) and Weapon Locker (Weapons).
I helped unify the design across all menus and as the features extended with purchase potential for all screens.
tutorials
FIRST TIME USER EXPERIENCE
The Tutorials for Mafia: The Old Country were built into the story and different chapters.
I set up the structure of what players should learn, what we need to repeat to make sure it's remembered, wrote Tutorial texts, and implemented the texts in Unreal.
We set up the design for both small Tutorials to show during gameplay to not be too interruptive, and large Tutorials with images and more text to explain a feature more in depth.
GAMEPLAY + HUD
TELL THE PLAYER JUST ENOUGH
I worked on all aspects of the HUD across the game, damage, and health states.
A core pillar of the game was to keep the information and UI minimalistic, so we opted to use icons over text, and we focused on giving the right information at the right time and hiding UI when it wasn't needed to allow the game visuals and cinematic style to really shine.
ROSARY PAGE
COLLECT AND EQUIP BOOST ITEMS
To allow some customization of preferred playstyle, we added a Rosary Screen to the Pause menu. This allows. To make the screen feel more real, we placed the Rosary in the background so players can follow along in the menu, which part of the Rosary they were changing.
We created simple icons to differentiate between the types of boost the Medalions and Beads.
FEATURES AND GAME MODES
MINI GAMES
EXTRA ACTIVITIES
We have some small mini games across the game that I did the design for.
Photography: Using an old camera in the game to take photos both for the main storyline and as an extra activity to add to the collection page.
Safe Cracking: Find a Note and enter the code into safes to take what's inside.
Knife Duels: Boss fights in Knife Duels.
Choking enemies: Choking out enemies have a timer the player need to tab the button to
Car Cranking: Starting cars by interacting with the crank.
KNIFE DUELS
BOSS FIGHTS
Boss fights are dueled out in close Knife Fights.
Since there is quite a lot of time sometimes between Duels, we opted to have the actions listed on the HUD throughout the Duel to let players be immersed in the Duel instead of struggling to remember the controls.
RACING
CAR & HORSES
We have 2 types or Races in the game, one on Horse, the other with a car.
We established a common UI design across these races to keep it concistent and so the player didn't have to learn the new HUD for different features.
ROAD SIGNS
A MAFIA LEGACY
A feature that was in the previous Mafia games was road signs guiding the player when driving. So we knew we needed to bring this into Mafia TOC as well.
We worked on the design together with Tech Art to come up with a sign concept where the signs are physical objects placed along roads (instead of floating UI) and how the signs should look to both fit with the time (the game is set in early 1900s Sicily) and they were visible enough.
I made sure they were visible across the rugged rock and green terrain so players could see them while driving or riding fast, adjusting the shader we had on them directly in Unreal.
FREE RIDE - COMING LATER...
email: anna.wii@hotmail.com