Meet John Romero's gangster great-grandma in a new Empire of Sin trailer

Here's a nice thing. You may know that tactical simulation of 1920s Chicago Empire of Sin features a playable gang boss based on John Romero's real brothel-owning great-grandmother Elvira, because we told you that last year and you were definitely paying attention. Now, to celebrate Mother's Day, Empire of Sin's game director Brenda Romero and also John Romero, who says he is "working on Empire of Sin in a lot of different areas," have made a video about what a badass old lady Elvira Morales was.

Not everything about Empire of Sin is historically accurate. For instance, it's a well-known fact that Al Capone's movements were real-time rather than turn-based. But also it's unlikely Elvira Morales was able to blow purple smoke that gave her mind-control powers, as seen in the video. Still, Empire of Sin looks like a neat evocation of the period even if it's not a particularly reality-based one.

Empire of Sin will have 14 bosses you can choose to play, including Irish mobster Dean O'Banion and Harlem racketeer Stephanie St. Clair, as well as Al Capone and Elvira Morales. It's due out in autumn of 2020 from Romero Games and Paradox.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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