That is an interesting question. As far as I know, after Dan left 2K he worked as reviewer for best CZ game website (games.cz) - he wrote many reviews there, including 9/10 New Vegas one. And he probably prepared some of the design for next possible projects while searching for investors and team.
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Agreed. Mafia 1 is one of my alltime favourites. I played the main storyline for at least 5 times, and I spent countless hours exploring the city in free roam.
Also, every true Mafia fan should visit the “Kunsthistorisches Museum” in Vienna, which is the real-life counterpart of the ingame Museum where the showdown takes place.
I went there a few years ago and it was breathtaking. The art was stunning, and walking up those steps sent a chill down my spine. Certainly the best museum I’ve ever been to.
http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/73/IMG_0090_-Wien-_Kunsthistorisches_Museum.JPG
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That looks stunning, thanks for the tip.
BTW I just visited danielvavra.com (his personal site) and among interviews listed there I found this gem on IGN from 2001:
" IGNPC: Why have you chosen to present the game in a strictly third-person view?
Daniel Vavra:
A lot of people are afraid about that, because the games they have played from a 3rd person view were ugly, characters had strange animations, or controls were uncomfortable. The creation of good game from 1st person is much easier, because you only have to model the weapons. There are few animations and few problems with synchronization of movement and animations. You just copy Quake. But what I am missing in 1st person games is the lead hero. You can’t see him, you can’t feel that you are him and you can’t watch all the actions that he performs. Finally, all the 1st person games look exactly the same.
We will use 1st person controls in a 3rd person view, with motion captured animations and it seems that it will work well. If not, we will think about something else. "
Aaaah, how the times change 
Personally I like both perspectives, but want Warhorse to use 1st in Kingdom Come.
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Well that’s not even true when it comes to CryEngine, the body is visible. But CryEngine is designed to work in first person, just like Quake, third person is possible but Crytek haven’t really put any effort into developing it so the developer has to do almost all of the work.
Well, it is interview from 2001, so 13 years ago You can’t take it as some rock solid statement 
In fact they were developing Mafia in the same time as GTA 3 was developed, but GTA 3 was released slightly sooner. Noone had done open world 3rd person city action before.
Guys, if you liked the gaming experience of Mafia 1, one game to be definitely checked out is The Saboteur by Pandemic Studios. It’s rather unknown, because it also suffered some development trouble and Pandemic was closed down after being forced to finish the game early (which resulted in the game’s originally planned great finale getting scrapped and replaced). But it’s still a fantastic game, inspired by a real story of an irish guy working with the french resistance cell in Paris during the WW2. Saboting Nazi installations across a bit scaled-down Paris and nearby countryside and pursuing a personal conflict with a certain high-ranking nazi officer…
It’s one of those “forgotten treasure” kinds of games, imho.
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Well of course, I did not post it as a slight against Dan, just as something that struck me as funny. Both perspectives have their own merits anyway.
Imho The Saboteur is a boring mess. 
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Boring is really not a word I would use with this game. A large game map with a lot of Nazi infrastructure to clean up, lots of vehicles, reasonable arsenal, 1st class atmosphere and a decent movie-like storyline was enough for me to do several playthroughs. Not by far as many as with Mafia 1, but frankly- I never played any game as many times as Mafia.
It was based on William Grover Williams, but nobody likes the English so they made him a hard drinking, two fisted Irishman because everyone (American) likes the Irish.
It was a fun game but I never managed to finish it. It’s one of those games where you find yourself having to restart more frequently than you restart the machine you’re playing it on. I’ve since learned to back up all my saves to avoid the bollock ache.
The Saboteur was a really, really good game. Definitely not all that realistic in a number of ways, but fun.
Tastes vary I guess.
So much memories 
I remember that and I would not changed a word I really had to struggle with almost everyone at the time, because 3rd person games had very crappy cameras and it was big complication in interiors and for animators, but it was the best choice for the game - it was a game about Tommy Angelo, so it was a good idea to show him all the time, the environment didnt had as much details as games have now etc. KCD is different case. Its an RPG, so its more about player choices, than linear story like mafia. The interaction with the environment is going to play major role and its also much more detailed. We also solved all those floating camera issues - you will see your body, there is no clipping and the first person combat is reallu challenge I wanted to accept
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I just replayed Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It’s astonishing how much they already could do in 2006 and how little other companies learnt/copied from it in the meantime… It offered engaging first person combat, a full body view, nice first person cutscenes and story, nice physics. Even the Source Engine is still good looking. It’s of course not a real RPG (more a linear action adventure) but I would recommend it to everyone interested in first person slashers.
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HA ! I totally agree, in Mafia the third person perspective was fantastic, it was a cinematic film-like game, more than any other at the time, and third person suited it, plus it was well done.
But I love the first person cam for KCD, especially since there is the full body dynamics it is just great, to see hands interacting with environment, legs when looking down…I remember when I played first Crysis, it already had this and it improved the feeling of first person to a great level.
But I also like that for cutscenes, they will be in the style of Witcher, proper cinematic cutscenes that are engaging to watch - unlike in Skyrim, where all dialogues were in first person, but were very unengaging from visual perspective (and from writing perspective, but that is another story). I think the way KCD does it is a win win. For me at least.
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I’m liking the voicework so far in Mafia II, especially Joe. I think I can get a little sense of things that helped lead to what Warhorse is going for with KCD, and when I get Mafia in a few days I’m really looking forward to going back to that.
Yeah the voice acting and cutscenes in general are great. I like all three main guys, Vito, Joe and Henry.
It’s so very sad to see that this is a really fun game. I got it for around $3 (US) but when I tried to play it, the Y-axis controls are not “invertable”. I could have practiced a bit I’m sure, but I’ve been playing Y-axis inverted for over a decade now, and found it difficult to control otherwise.
Thus, I only played DMMM for about 5 minutes 