Of course, brute force and firepower aren’t the only ways to get the edge on the competition.

If you do favors for citizens on the street, they will give you information about the rival made men, [including] kill conditions and where they hang out. It all comes full-circle to your ultimate goal of fighting the rival families… Unlike Godfather 1, where hits were more like side-missions and unrelated, in this game, by hunting down and eliminating those made men you’re actually physically weakening the rival families in the strategy part of the game. They will have fewer made men to defend their businesses or come after your own.

From what I’ve seen, there are no gratuitous actions in GF2. Every activity contributes to your ultimate goal of complete dominance, including multiplayer. Although the dynamic flow of violence and power as you scramble for control of the city’s rackets would make for an intense multiplayer experience akin to a real-time strategy game, EA opted for a separate and streamlined route more in line with the deathmatches and games of first-person shooters.

One of our complaints against some of the competition is that there’s a huge variety of modes but no one’s playing them. Everyone tends to gravitate back to a few tried and true ones. So we wanted to take that sense of family into the multiplayer, but also give you that sort of high-action experience that everyone knows and loves as well.

The “sense of family” Wade mentions is referring to the fact that your multiplayer character is chosen from your pool of made men from the single-player game, down to his clothing and abilities. Furthermore, the winnings earned through good performance are deposited in your single-player bank account, in turn giving you more money to purchase additional upgrades.