The next major project from Mafia 3 studio Hangar 13 has been canned, despite $53m having been spent on its development since 2017.

The unannounced game, known internally as Volt, was set to be a three-player co-operative live service game to rival Destiny. The game's name was apparently short for Voltron, and one key mechanic would have seen enemies fusing together.

But despite the time and money pumped into the project so far, parent company Take-Two has now decided to can the game - potentially affecting nearly 200 people's jobs.

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Mafia 2's Definitive Edition looks to be in the hands of some people already - footage of it running on PlayStation 4 Pro is out in the wild.

As a reminder, a leak last week saw details of 2K's Mafia Trilogy spill online alongside a more vague official tease.

The trilogy will contain Mafia 3, plus a polished up remaster of Mafia 2 and a lavish "from the ground up" remake of Mafia 1.

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The official Mafia account has woken up after almost two years of silence and tweeted a single word: "Family."

Initially, I wondered if the tweet was merely recognising that today is Mother's Day (don't panic UKers - ours was back in March), but given the account hasn't acknowledged any other Mother's Days - or Father's Days, for that matter - I'm inclined to think there's a little more to it than coincidence.

So: what could it mean? Is there a new instalment in the offing, or are we finally getting that Mafia II remaster everyone wants (seriously: check out the replies to that tweet to see what I mean).

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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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