When i finished mafia 2, I was really annoyed that Joe just got taken away in another car to a different place and we couldn’t see what happened to him or Vito. Anyone else also annoyed?
Yes, it is quite frustrating, but it’s heavily implied what became of Vito and Joe; the game ultimately rested on their brothership, so where could they have gone with the plot at that point?
Another thing to note is that this is only one of what was planned to be four different endings; playtesters considered the whole observatory ending to be the most “satisfying” and 2K went with that. Mafia 2 is infamous for its galaxy-load of cut and unfinished content. The game was in development for 6 years yet was still rushed out of the door. You were meant to be given choices during the story which would ultimately decide the ending, for example, choosing whether to join up with Vinci or Falcone after getting out of jail, which meant one of the scrapped endings had you in a deadly showdown with Joe (since he would be in a rival family) in an unused hotel in the centre of Empire Bay. As proof, unused music from scrapped endings were included in Mafia 2’s orchestral score (“Alternate Ending” and “Sicily”).
Going back to the canon ending we see in-game, there is actually an early subtitle script for chapter 15 somebody leaked on reddit a few years back which includes some scrapped dialogue for the final scene (I’ve taken the liberty of stylising some of the lines here; source):
VITO: Hey, hey! What the hell’s going on? Where are they taking Joe?
LEO: Sorry, kid. Joe wasn’t part of our deal.
It’s funny how guys like us are called Men of Honor - you know, back in the old country. There’s no such thing as honor in our world, Vito. We built our organizations on mutual interest - we all get richer quicker when we work together. But the moment that changes, well, then it’s every man for himself.
Frank’s prepared to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. After what you and your buddies did, you’re damn lucky to be alive.
We’ll make sure your buddy Joe is taken care of. Let’s talk about you, what comes next for you, Vito. Smart guys in this business can go a long way, so long as you never forget that it’s work, it’s a job, it’s the way we survive. It’s called “The Life” for a reason, you know. Once you’re in, the only way you are ever getting out is in a coffin.
To be honest with you, kid, I’m surprised he lived this long.
JOE: Hey, where you going guys? The cathouse is the other… Oh fuck!
(being choked)VITO: We thought we could break the rules… That we could make our own. But all we did was create chaos.
It slowly devoured us all.
And there was no way back.
There’s no heaven for wiseguys…
And of course, some cliffhangers are resolved in Mafia III, if you can stomach its terribly dull gameplay loop (although it’s easier to just look up the cutscenes instead). If you can get past the fact that the director and main writer for Mafia 1 and 2 Dan Vávra wasn’t involved in Mafia III at all, this is the closest you will get to a resolution of Vito Scaletta, Joe Barbaro and Leo Galante’s tales…
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Thank you for replying to this topic, I think 2k should have completed some of the unused content and made a complete ending for mafia 2 that ends the story of Vito scalleta and Joe Barbaro, although; like almost all other game devs, 2k is a money-hungry company, and if you don’t want spoilers, you’d have to buy Mafia 3, which as you said, has a terribly dull gameplay loop. So in conclusion, Mafia 2 has a good story, but an incomplete ending.
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