Trivia / Scarface: The World Is Yours

• All-Star Cast: Aside from Robert Loggia and Steven Bauer lending voices for the game (though not in the same role as the film), the voice cast also includes James Woods, Anthony Anderson, Michael York, Ricky Gervais, Oliver Platt, Robert Davi, Kevin Dillon, Michael Rapaport and many other notable character and voice actors, musicians and other celebrities from Los Angeles and Vancouver. Based on behind the scenes interviews everyone was on board because Awesome, Dear Boy due to the film's iconic status.
• Banned in China: Due to its graphic content (which is arguably far more gruesome than the original film), the game was placed on the index by the German Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (German: Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien or BPjM), restricting its sale and distribution to adults.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Due to his voice changing significantly in the years since the movie, Al Pacino handpicked frequent theater collaborator André Sogliuzzo to voice Tony; though Pacino's likeness remains.
• Duelling Works: With The Godfather, another video game adaptation of a classic gangster film starring Al Pacino released the same year. More notably, since Pacino lent his likeness of Tony Montana in The World Is Yours, Michael Corleone was replaced by The Other Darrin in The Godfather.
• Follow the Leader: An interesting example. The game is a Wide-Open Sandbox in the style of Grand Theft Auto...which itself took several cues from Scarface (1983). In fact, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was widely considered a Spiritual Successor of the film prior to The World Is Yours, though significantly Lighter and Softer.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The game never saw a digital release and went out of print not long after. Other than used copies on Ebay, the only way for one to enjoy the game is to download it from the usual pirate sites.
• The Other Darrin: Since many of the actors were too old or died before the game's release, some roles had to be recast.
  • André Sogliuzzo voices Tony in the game, although Al Pacino's likeness remains and a few lines during the mansion shootout's opening cutscene are from Pacino, as they're directly taken from the film.
  • Paul Shenar passed away in 1989, Robert Davi replaced him as Sosa.
  • This also happened numerous times with some of the supporting characters, who were played in the movie by relative unknowns only to be replaced by more famous actors in The World is Yours:
    • James Woods takes on the role of Tony's lawyer George Sheffield.
    • Cheech Marin takes over the part of Gaspar Gomez.
    • Michael York is Jerry, Tony's banker.
    • Miguel Sandoval is Nacho Contreras.
• Reality Subtext: Al Pacino strongly felt that Tony Montana would never kill anyone who didn't have it coming, so it is literally impossible for Tony to shoot random civilians on the street. If you try it anyway, Tony will cuss you out when the trigger is pulled rather than firing a shot. Except for when using the Enforcer, Driver or Assassin characters, who can shoot anyone you want.
• Real Song Theme Tune: The song in the opening credits is Ministry's "Burning Inside".
• Stillborn Franchise: Vivendi announced plans for multiple sequels but those plans were cancelled when Activision bought out Vivendi in 2008.
• Troubled Production: The game's development suffered from Radical being stretched thin between various CSI projects, Crash Tag Team Racing and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. A behind closed doors showing of the game at E3 2005 was knocked for its dated graphics and uninspired design, and feedback from private pre-alpha playtests held that year were equally negative, leading Vivendi and Radical to push the game back a full year for an overhaul. The game resurfaced at E3 2006 to better reactions and released later that year.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, Scarface: The World is Yours was intended to be a straight adaptation of the original film but was quickly abandoned by the developers for two reasons, (1) They felt it was too good to replicate in video game format and (2) They knew that players wouldn't care for Tony Montana since he canonically dies at the end of the movie. So, the game was reimagined as an Alternate Timeline sequel to Scarface focusing on Tony surviving the shootout with Sosa's henchmen and plotting his revenge.
  • Al Pacino was set to fully reprise his role as Tony Montana, but since his voice had changed so much since the original film, both he and Radical agreed to pick someone else to voice Tony, while still keeping his likeness. Pacino personally handpicked André Sogliuzzo as his replacement.
  • Elvira was planned to be in the game but was cut early in development when Michelle Pfeiffer wanted nothing to do with it. Ritual also reached out to Oliver Stone to help with the game's story but he also turned them down, leaving Blow writer David McKenna to help write the story.
  • In an interview with IGN, writer David McKenna had a different introduction in mind for the game that Vivendi Universal shot down.
    "I wanted to kick off the game with Tony sitting in the tub, talking to a group of movie studio executives. He's saying "Why does the bad guy have to always die at the end? Well, fuck you! You die!" and then he pulls out a machine gun and blows them all away! And then he escapes from the mansion! But Vivendi Universal wouldn't do it."
  • The game files have a lot of unused lines for Tony, some of which are dialogue for features and missions that were cut from the final game. Other unused voice lines suggest that Mama Montana and Venus had bigger roles in the plot but were cut down for the final game, which are detailed in this video.
  • A port to the Xbox 360 was cancelled late in development. The official site at the time promotes that the aforementioned console can play the game through the backwards compatibility feature.
  • Pre-alpha gameplay footage and concept art from a sequel (tentatively titled Scarface: Empire) surfaced in 2022 when YouTuber Mafia Game Videos uploaded them, showing that it would've been set in Las Vegas. It was ultimately scrapped following Activision's acquisition of Vivendi.

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