Five Families

Five Families is a turn-based strategy game about the rise and fall of the American Mafia. Across forty years and eighty turns you decide who gets made, who gets paid and who gets buried, while rival Bosses circle, your own capos scheme and the FBI builds the case that could bring it all down.

The war is over. The streets belong to whoever has the nerve to take them. You've just been named Boss of one of the Five Families, the most powerful criminal organizations in American history. The Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo and Bonanno families control everything from the waterfront to Wall Street, from the union halls to the gambling dens.
Your predecessor is dead. The seat is warm. And every made man in the city is watching to see what kind of Boss you'll be.

Fifty-six neighborhoods. That's how many pieces New York is cut into. Every block, every corner, every storefront is an opportunity or a threat. Open extortion rings, loan sharking operations and numbers rackets. Set up restaurants and construction companies as fronts to wash your dirty money clean. Launch high-stakes schemes (bust-outs, insurance fraud, airport heists) that can make you rich in a week or put your best man behind bars.

Every racket has a dial. Run it quiet and nobody notices. Run it aggressive and the money pours in, but so does the heat.

This isn't a corporation. It's a family. Your Underboss keeps the crews in line. Your Consigliere whispers the moves nobody else sees. Your Caporegimes run their territories like feudal lords: some loyal, some ambitious, all dangerous.
Every man in your organization has a story that writes itself. A soldier who pulls the trigger enough times becomes a killer. One who runs the books becomes an earner. Loyalty rises and falls with every decision you make. Promote the wrong man and you've got a conspiracy. Ignore the right man and he walks. Or worse.

Send your Underboss to shake down the docks. Send your Consigliere to negotiate with a judge. But choose carefully. They're gone for four turns, and a lot can happen while they're away.

You're not the only Boss in New York. Four rival families are playing the same game, and each one plays it differently. Some will offer you tribute and respect. Others will test your borders, steal your earners and put contracts on your captains.
Diplomacy in the Cosa Nostra is a knife wrapped in silk. Build trust. Earn respect. Inspire fear. Call sit-downs to settle disputes, or take it to the Commission, where the five Bosses vote on war, peace, sanctions and who gets to live.

And if diplomacy fails, there's always the other way. Tensions don't explode overnight. They build. A warning. An ultimatum. A hostile act. And then, war. Real war. The kind that empties your crews and fills the cemeteries.

Every racket you run, every body you drop, every dollar you wash leaves a trail. Federal heat is the clock ticking on your empire. Push it too high and the raids begin. Higher still, and your men start getting arrested. Keep pushing, and the FBI builds a RICO case that can put your entire family away for life.
Your lawyer is your best friend. Your worst enemy is the man in your own crew who decides prison is too long and the FBI's deal sounds too good. One informant can unravel decades of work. And the agents they plant inside your family? You won't know they're there until the handcuffs click.

The unions built this city, and the families built the unions. Six of New York's most powerful labor organizations are waiting to be infiltrated: longshoremen, teamsters, construction, sanitation, hospitality and the garment workers. Get your hooks in deep enough and clean money flows like water. But the feds watch the unions closer than anything else.
Then there's the drug question. Heroin. Cocaine. Marijuana. The money is staggering. The risk is absolute. Some of the real Five Families banned narcotics because the heat wasn't worth the cash. Others couldn't resist. In this game, just like in history, that choice is yours. And it will define everything that comes after.

1950 to 1964: The Golden Age. The FBI doesn't know your name yet. Build your foundation. Establish your rackets. Make your bones.
1965 to 1975: The Storm. Drugs change the game. Wars erupt between families. The federal government gets serious. The old rules start to break.
1976 to 1990: The Twilight. RICO. Wiretaps. Informants everywhere. The greatest criminal empire in American history is crumbling. Can you be the last one standing?

More than 100 unique events force impossible choices with real consequences. A living chronicle records every murder, every alliance and every betrayal: your family's history, written in blood and money. View your organization through an FBI-style org chart. Listen to a period-inspired soundtrack that darkens with each era.

Survive until 1990. Outperform every rival family. Become the King of New York.