'Mafia 3' Release Date News: GameStop and Best Buy Reveal April Release Date
If reports are true, retailers may be becoming the bane of a game publisher's marketing campaign. According to an IGN report, not just one but three retailers may have inadvertently revealed that the upcoming open-world action game "Mafia 3" will be released in April. This is sooner than what most gamers were expecting.
Online games retailer GameStop is one of the retailers that listed the date April 26, 2016 as the game's release date. Best Buy, on the other hand, had a pre-order card printed with the same date. Another online retailer, Amazon, in its pre-order listing of the game also indicated the same date.
When IGN asked publisher 2K Games to comment on these revelations, the publisher did not confirm the date and said that they have not announced any official release date for the game. In the statement they provided to IGN, they said "Mafia III will release in calendar 2016 during Take-Two Interactive's fiscal year 2017. No official release date has been announced at this time. It is common practice for retailers to list placeholder dates before an official release date has been announced due to the requirements of their operating systems."
The April 26, 2016 release dates on the Amazon and GameStop websites were later taken down. The date currently indicated in both retailer sites is Dec. 31, 2016.
"Mafia 3" is a third-person action-adventure video game that is set in New Orleans in 1968. Players control a character named Lincoln Clay, who is a veteran of the Vietnam War. His mission is to avenge his friends who were murdered by local mobsters. The game has an open world design, which means players can roam around the world freely. Players can make use of weapons, mainly guns, to defeat their enemies. Stealth is also an option, where players can try to hide and avoid being seen by their enemies. Melee-combat is also possible.
The game is being developed by Hangar 13 and 2K Czech and it is being published by 2K Games.
