The real history of Cosa Nostra — and the Sixth seat at the Commission
For nearly a century, five Italian-American crime families have ruled the New York underworld: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese. They are the architecture of the American Mafia. They built it; they survived it; they still answer to it. And they all sit on a single governing body called The Commission.
Most browser mafia games drop you into a fictional universe. The Fifth Family takes a different angle. The five real Families exist. The Commission exists. Your job is to build a new Family from nothing — and force the existing five to recognise you as the Sixth.
This page is for anyone curious about the real history behind the genre. If you want to skip straight into building your own crew, register here. Otherwise, settle in.
The American Mafia did not appear fully-formed. It was carried over piecemeal by Sicilian immigrants in the late 1800s — men fleeing rural poverty, fascist crackdowns, and centuries-old vendettas. The first recorded made man on US soil was Giuseppe Morello, a Sicilian fugitive who set up in New Orleans before consolidating power in New York around the turn of the 20th century.
Prohibition (1920–1933) is what changed everything. Overnight, a vast population of ordinary people wanted something the law had outlawed. The Italian gangs who already controlled neighbourhood-level rackets — extortion, gambling, prostitution — suddenly had a national-scale product to move. Bootlegging built the modern Mafia's bank account.
By the late 1920s, the New York underworld had fractured into a brutal civil war between two Sicilian factions: the Castellammarese (led by Salvatore Maranzano) and Joe "The Boss" Masseria's outfit. The dispute lasted nearly two years and killed dozens of made men. It ended only when a young, ambitious Charles "Lucky" Luciano switched sides, had Masseria killed in a Coney Island restaurant, then a few months later had Maranzano killed too.
Luciano didn't want either old don ruling. He wanted a system.
In late 1931, Luciano convened a meeting that would define organised crime in America for the next ninety years. He proposed dividing the New York Mafia into five formally recognised families, each with its own boss, underboss, consigliere, and capos. Disputes between families would no longer be settled by all-out war. They'd go before a governing council — The Commission — made up of the five New York bosses plus the heads of the Chicago Outfit and a handful of other regional seats.
The Commission's authority was not legal, of course. It was enforced by mutual interest: any family that refused to abide could be sanctioned, isolated, or destroyed by the others acting together. It worked. The Castellammarese War was the last large-scale internal Mafia war for decades.
The five seats Luciano carved out in 1931 — under different names at different times — are still recognisable today as the modern Five Families. Bosses have died, gone to prison, turned informant; the Families themselves have endured.
Each of the five has its own territory, its own specialities, and its own history of leadership. Here's a brief portrait of each.
Founded by Joseph Bonanno, one of Luciano's original five. Bonanno ran his Family for over thirty years — the longest-tenured boss in modern Mafia history. The Family is famous for two things: its disciplined, old-school adherence to Sicilian traditions, and the catastrophic Donnie Brasco infiltration of the late 1970s, in which FBI agent Joe Pistone spent six years undercover as a jewel thief and gathered enough evidence to convict over 200 mobsters. The Bonannos were temporarily expelled from The Commission as a result, the only Family ever to suffer that disgrace. They have since been re-admitted.
Originally the Profaci Family under Joseph Profaci, an olive-oil importer with a side in extortion. The Family took its modern name from Joseph Colombo, who took control in the 1960s. Famous for the bloody Colombo Wars of the 1990s, in which two factions — one led by acting boss Vic Orena, the other by imprisoned boss Carmine Persico's loyalists — fought a civil war that killed twelve made men in eighteen months. The Family survived but was significantly weakened.
The most famous of the five — partly because of its size, partly because of John Gotti. Founded as the Mangano Family in 1931, it took its modern name from Carlo Gambino, who ruled it quietly and brilliantly from 1957 to 1976. Gotti, who took over in 1985 by murdering boss Paul Castellano outside Sparks Steak House, became the most public Mafia boss in American history — the "Teflon Don" who beat three trials before finally being convicted on RICO charges in 1992. The Family is still considered the wealthiest of the five.
Lucky Luciano's own Family, originally bearing his name and then renamed for Vito Genovese after Luciano was deported in 1946. The Genoveses are widely regarded as the most disciplined and least flashy of the five — sometimes called the "Ivy League" of the Mafia. They produced Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, who famously feigned mental illness for decades, wandering Greenwich Village in a bathrobe to avoid prosecution. He ran the Family successfully for the entire time. Today the Genoveses are believed to be the largest and most powerful of the surviving Five Families.
Originally the Reina Family, taking its modern name from Tommy Lucchese ("Three-Finger Brown"), who consolidated power after Reina's murder. The Luccheses are the labour-rackets specialists — for decades they controlled the Garment District, the airports, and significant portions of the New Jersey waterfront through corrupt union locals. The Family was nearly destroyed in the 1990s by a faction war between the "Jersey Crew" and the New York-based leadership, but survived and remains active.
The history of the Five Families is also a history of individual men. A few names tower above the rest.
The architect. Born in Sicily, raised in New York's Lower East Side. Luciano organised the killings that ended the Castellammarese War, then convened the 1931 meeting that established The Commission. Convicted of compulsory prostitution in 1936 (the charges were almost certainly trumped up by prosecutor Thomas Dewey), he ran his Family from prison and was eventually deported to Italy in 1946. He continued to influence US Mafia affairs from abroad until his death in Naples.
Not a New York boss — Capone ran the Chicago Outfit — but he's the most famous American gangster of all time and a key figure on The Commission. Capone built his fortune on Prohibition-era bootlegging and is held responsible for the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven members of a rival gang were lined up against a garage wall and machine-gunned. He was eventually convicted of tax evasion in 1931 and died of complications from syphilis in 1947.
The quiet Don. Where Capone wanted headlines and Gotti wanted cameras, Gambino wanted invisibility. He took over the Anastasia Family in 1957 (with the help of a barbershop assassination) and ran it for nineteen years, dying peacefully of natural causes — almost unheard of for a Mafia boss of his era. The 1972 film The Godfather is widely believed to have been modelled in part on him.
The opposite of Gambino. Gotti loved publicity, dressed in $2,000 suits, and fed quotes to the New York tabloids. After arranging the murder of his predecessor Paul Castellano in 1985, he ran the Gambino Family for seven years, beating three federal trials in a row — earning the nickname the "Teflon Don" because no charges would stick. The fourth trial, in 1992, convicted him on the testimony of his underboss Sammy "The Bull" Gravano. He died in federal prison ten years later.
The crazy act. Gigante ran the Genovese Family from the late 1980s onward while pretending — for nearly thirty years — to suffer from severe mental illness. He'd shuffle around Greenwich Village in pyjamas and a bathrobe, mumbling to himself, while continuing to issue orders to his Family. Federal psychiatrists eventually concluded the act was an act, and he was convicted in 1997. He admitted the deception in 2003 to receive a reduced sentence on additional charges.
If the Five Families are real, why call a game The Fifth Family?
Because the most interesting question in any Mafia story isn't which Family do you join? It's could you build your own? The historical Five Families weren't given their seats — they fought for them, killed for them, negotiated for them across decades. The Commission isn't a closed shop by nature; it's closed because no one new has ever been strong enough to force their way in.
The Fifth Family is a free browser-based mafia MMORPG built around exactly that premise. You start at the bottom — a street-level thug running petty rackets in a recognisably modern city. You commit crimes, recruit allies, build a crew, then a Family. Eventually, if you and your people are good enough, you challenge the existing order: you fight for a seat at The Commission as the Sixth Family in the city.
What sets the game apart from other browser mafia games:
The Five Families had decades to consolidate. You don't. The clock is already running.
Start Building Your FamilyThe Five Families of New York are the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese crime families. They form the dominant structure of the Italian-American Mafia, formalised at the 1931 Commission meeting led by Lucky Luciano.
The American Mafia traces its origins to Sicilian immigrants in the late 1800s. Charles "Lucky" Luciano is widely credited with formalising its modern structure by establishing The Commission in 1931, ending the Castellammarese War and unifying the Five Families under shared rules.
Cosa Nostra — Italian for "Our Thing" — is the term Sicilian and Italian-American mafiosi use to refer to their criminal society. It encompasses both the Sicilian Mafia and the American Mafia (the Five Families and other regional outfits like the Chicago Outfit).
Yes. All five Families still exist and remain active in 2026, though significantly diminished from their 20th-century peak. Federal RICO prosecutions, cooperator testimony, and changing immigration patterns have reduced their reach. The Genovese and Gambino families are generally considered the most powerful of the surviving five.
The Sicilian Mafia is the original, based in Sicily, with roots in the 1800s. The American Cosa Nostra is its descendant, brought over by immigrants and then transformed during Prohibition into something distinctly American. The two organisations remain in contact but operate independently. American families like the Bonannos and Gambinos historically maintained closer ties to Sicily than others.
The name is a deliberate nod to the Five Families of New York. In The Fifth Family browser mafia MMORPG, players don't just join one of the historical five — they build a new Family from scratch and fight for the right to be recognised at The Commission as a Sixth seat. You start as a street thug; you finish as a Don whose name belongs alongside Gambino and Lucchese.
It's a real persistent browser-based MMORPG with real-time PvP, a player-driven economy, Family-vs-Family warfare, and a casino. Combat outcomes depend on stats, equipment, and strategy — not idle clicking. There's depth here for players who want it, but the entry curve is gentle enough for newcomers to the genre.
Yes. Free to play in your browser or via iOS / Android apps. No pay-to-win mechanics. Optional cosmetic and convenience purchases exist but do not give competitive advantage.
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