Eric Lang’s The Godfather board game, Corleone’s Empire, will make you an offer you can’t refuse this summer

Eric Lang’s long-awaited tabletop adaptation of The Godfather has finally been given a release date.

Originally announced as The Godfather: The Board Game a year ago, the title was subsequently resubtitled Corleone’s Empire and pushed from an initial planned release in late 2016 to July this year.

The game’s mechanics echo some of Lang’s ‘dudes on a map’ strategy elements seen in Blood Rage and the upcoming Rising Sun. Players take control of rival mafia families (excluding the Corleones) looking to control business and regions of New York through extortion, bribery and even putting out hits on enemy mobsters – you can execute drive-by shootings to ensure they sleep with the fishes.

Players will need to launder their money to get it clean and can pay tribute to the titular Don at the end of each round to help increase their influence.

The game lasts for five rounds, following the storyline of the first entry in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic cinematic series of films.

We were lucky enough to play a prototype of the game with Lang at last year’s Essen Spiel and found it to be an effectively thematic take on the movie, with plenty of strategy and the feeling of running a criminal empire – as well as dealing with all of the risks. You’ll even get plastic figures of your mobsters and their henchmen, plus a mini Marlon Brando. It's sure to be an offer you can't refuse.