Zynga Continues String of New Games With Mafia Wars Sequel

Another one of Zynga’s original game franchises on Facebook is getting a major facelift. FarmVille got the English Countryside, FrontierVille added the Pioneer Trail, and now Mafia Wars is launching a sequel, Mafia Wars 2.

Today, a teaser video appeared on Facebook, offering a look at the characters, clues as to what the narrative will be about, and the tagline “Being bad never felt so good.”

No details on the launch date, other than it’s expected soon.

Zynga has picked up the pace of releases since filing for an initial public offering in July, adding Empires & Allies, Words With Friends and Adventure World. Without a doubt, it remains the largest game maker on the platform, with nearly 50 million daily players and 268 million monthly players.

Given the recent launches, Mafia Wars, which launched three years ago, has dropped on the charts to become Zynga’s 11th largest game, with five million monthly players.

Zynga’s competition is coming from two fronts: Companies using branded intellectual property to launch games, and game makers using more advanced game mechanics.

In the crime category, Zynga will soon have serious competition from Kabam, which is working on a game based on “The Godfather”; the game version is due out of beta later this year.

The teaser video for Mafia Wars 2 reveals that the game is about building your empire and getting revenge. Zynga’s first version of the game was what the industry calls a “text-based role-playing game,” where you click to complete various jobs.

Using that mechanic alone for the sequel would appear out of date today, so it will be interesting to see how Zynga evolves the game while still creating something that’s of interest to millions of people.

Here’s a look at Mafia Wars 2:

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