Hours before Mafia: The Old Country's "full world premiere reveal," a trailer and summer 2025 release window appear to leak early via a YouTube ad

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It sounds like Mafia: The Old Country and GTA 6 could be launching fairly close together

A screenshot from the Mafia: The Old Country trailer showing a knife covered in blood.
(Image credit: Hangar 13)

Oops. Over 12 hours away from The Game Awards 2024, it seems that one of the big announcements set to be shown off there might have leaked early, as we now appear to have a release window for Mafia: The Old Country.

The upcoming Mafia game was already slated to fill out 2025's packed release schedule even further, but according to what appears to be a new trailer, it's apparently more specifically set to land in the summer. That's according to eagle-eyed fan Damon Andrews on Twitter, who claims to have encountered the new trailer via an ad on YouTube. 

"YouTube showed it as an ad. Had a 2025 summer release. Showed cutscene and all," Andrews claims. You can take a look at a snippet of the ad in question below – sure enough, that certainly looks like Mafia, and it proudly states "coming summer 2025" at the end.

We already knew that we were set to get more Mafia: The Old Country news during The Game Awards with it "confirmed for a full world premiere reveal," so we were guaranteed to get some news today. It seems likely that what we're shown during The Game Awards will be a longer version of the video above – I can't imagine that 2K will be happy that it's seemingly breached containment at the last hurdle. 

What's also interesting to note is that 2K-division Hangar 13 (which is developing Mafia: The Old Country) and GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games are both owned by Take-Two Interactive. GTA 6 currently stands as arguably the most anticipated game of 2025, with it set for a fall release. Mafia and GTA have some notable similarities, so it's pretty surprising to see the two upcoming launches apparently positioned relatively close together – 'summer' would often suggest a launch between June and August, while 'fall' usually implies a release between the start of September and end of November. 

Hopefully, that's not a sign that GTA 6 could end up slipping to 2026, but it's been reported that some publishers are actually waiting to see if Rockstar's game will release next year before they commit to their own launches, so they can ensure they don't get lost in its shadow.

Mafia: The Old Country sounds like it will avoid repeating the series' biggest mistake, and I couldn't be happier.

Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
News Writer

I'm one of 12DOVE's news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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