The Original Mafia Is Now Free On Steam To Celebrate 20th Anniversary

2K has made Illusion Softworks' crime game Mafia available for free on Steam to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary (as spotted by VGC).

The open-world game was first released for PC back in 2002, before receiving a port to Xbox and PS2 in 2004. It follows the criminal career of Tommy Angelo, who becomes reluctantly involved with the Salieri crime family, led by Don Salieri.

Reviews for the original PC version were extremely positive. IGN wrote, "Mafia is dripping with style and class and has certainly shoved itself into the ranks of the best games of this year, which as you know has already had some incredible titles." Gamespot also called it "One of the best games of the year." And Game Informer, compared it favorably to Grand Theft Auto III, writing that the map "is even larger and more detailed than Liberty City; and the out-of-the-car action is more compelling."

Following its release, Mafia received two sequels, Mafia II and Mafia III, as well as a definitive edition that came out in 2020.

This, of course, isn't the only Mafia news we've had in recent weeks.

The Hanger 13 General Manager Roman Hladík recently announced in an interview on the game's website: "I'm happy to confirm we've started work on an all-new Mafia project! While it's a few years away and we can't share anything more right now, we're really excited to keep working on this beloved franchise and to entertain our players with new stories."

According to a Kotaku report from back in May of this year, this new Mafia game is expected to be a prequel to the original made in Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to the Mafia III engine that was used for the recent remasters. With all this activity going on, what better time to go back and revisit the original and see how it holds up all these years later?

Are you going to pick up a copy of the original Mafia? What's your favorite memory of the game? Let us know!