Unionists want Mafia 3 banned over IRA mission

New game Mafia 3 hasn't getting the best reviews and now it's under fire from an unlikely source - Unionist MP's have taken issue with its content.

Mafia 3 is a big open world game set in the made up but pretty much New Orleans setting of New Bordeaux. It's intended to be a fictional but hard-hitting take on what it was like to live in that time, including large amounts of casual and horrific racism towards the main character of Lincoln Clay.

Now another aspect of the game has come under fire from a most unlikely source - Northern Irish Unionists. It's all down to a side mission in the game called IRA Don't Ask which sees you tasked with collecting some cars to be used in bombing runs in Northern Ireland. This comes from your NPC ally Thomas Burke, who is himself a walking, drinking Irish sterotype.

The Irish Newsreports that DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson was 'very concerned' with how the game might impact 'impressionable' minds.

“Whilst this game may seem to be a work of fiction for some, it could be seen as trivialising the suffering of innocent victims and the evil that is represented by all forms of terrorism. I invite the makers of this game to come to Northern Ireland and meet some of the innocent victims of the IRA and then consider whether the contents are appropriate. I hope they can be persuaded to withdraw the game and think again.”

Games come under this kind of fire fairly regularly. As a snapshot of a period in history it might have seemed like something which would be interesting for the developers to include, and rests alongside many other ugly elements of that decade.