Mafia 3 opens with a documentary-style montage and potted history of the game's main character, Lincoln Clay, whose body and life you jump into shortly after he returns from the war in Vietnam. But the game didn't always open this way.

Once upon a time Mafia 3 had a far more explosive start, a 'cold open' sequence to play out before the opening montage. It was controversial stuff - so sensitive, in fact, developer Hangar 13 scrubbed it from existence lest footage ever get out.

"That whole cold-open has been burned from our servers," said Andrew Wilson, executive producer, speaking at Brighton's Develop Conference yesterday in a session hosted by GamesIndustry.biz. "It literally does not exist. Because if ever that had come out without any context in any form it would have looked terrible, because disconnected from the game it's obviously even more shocking."

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