Mafia is a very extensive and complex project.
Just like with any other project, many unpredictable problems cropped up which we had to sort out either at the cost of the quality or the speed. That's why we've changed the 3D engine - when we found out that by using the original one we couldn't achieve the visual quality we'd originally intended. As we wanted to have animations in the game that would look really natural and animated sequences that would be nearing the film-like quality, we preferred taking longer with programming the animation tools. That, of course, delayed the date of publishing, but we're convinced that this is a good move - good for the game and the quality of it. The exact date of release is not known yet, but the game won't be finished sooner that the end of summer 2001.