Candywriter’s long-running life simulator game, BitLife, has truly come a long way from its humble beginnings in late 2018. In the two-plus years since then, it has gotten several major updates for its iOS and Android versions alike, with some of the recent ones introducing special careers, including the ability to become a professional athlete and the chance to reach rock, pop, or rap stardom as a professional musician. But what if sports and music aren’t your virtual character’s cup of tea? What if you’ve created a Bitizen who, as far as they can remember, has always wanted to be a gangster?
As Candywriter had stated, it’s not necessarily the most fitting update for the holiday season. But it’s a gift nonetheless for everyone who’s been hoping for the company to wrap up the year with one major update. We’re talking about BitLife version 1.46, aka the Mafia Update, and the change log promises all sorts of new features, as well as the ability to join any one of six mob families as an associate, working your way up from Associate to Godfather.
You can put out hits on people, shake down business owners, and earn money for your family, all while building up your notoriety and standing. So with that having been said, let’s move on to the heart of this BitLife strategy guide and discuss all the new features that you can take advantage of with the Mafia Update.
BitLife Mafia Update – Getting Started In Your Life Of (Organized) Crime
With the new Mafia Update rolling out for BitLife players, you can now make your characters live their “worst” lives in a variety of new ways, while also getting the chance to work your way up and become the top man or woman in the criminal organization you join.
As such, Crime has been added to the Special Talents you can choose for your new characters in God Mode — this makes it easier for Bitizens to commit crimes without getting caught, and increases their chances of performing fatal attacks when fighting. If you don’t have God Mode, that’s okay — you can create your character as usual, then wait for the right time to kick off your organized crime career.
Much like becoming a pro athlete or musician, you need to be at least 18 years old in order to join one of the various crime syndicates in the BitLife universe — the Irish Mob, the Latin Mafia, the regular (Italian) Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Triad, or the Yakuza.
However, you’ll also need to have some credibility as a small-time criminal so you can be considered as a potential member — that means burgling a few houses, stealing at least one car, and/or doing your fair share of shoplifting. You’ll also need to commit more crimes to be considered by syndicates with higher Notoriety stats.
But once you’ve gotten their eye, you will be allowed to choose from a variety of menial tasks — washing cars, doing yardwork, or chauffeuring, for instance — that will let you prove yourself as a would-be Associate. Be very sure, however, that you’ve got some cred before joining, because you could get beaten up badly (Happiness and Health both zeroed out) if they see you as a wannabe bad guy with no actual criminal experience!
Once you’ve been welcomed into the organization of your choice, tapping on Job, then tapping on your position within the family will lead you to a menu where you can view your Notoriety (how dangerous you are as a criminal), your Standing (how the family’s high-ranking officers value your contributions), and your Relationship with your various crewmates. Tapping on Family will show you the leader of the syndicate at the top of the screen — this could be a Godfather/Godmother, a Chairman/Chairwoman, a Skipper, or any other term used to designate the person in charge.
Below their profile, you’ll see the rank-and-file of the family, so to say, and this would normally consist of one Underboss, two to three mid-tier officers (usually referred to as Captains), three low-tier officers (usually called Soldiers), and three Associates.
When tapping on the profile of each family member, you will see the usual options for interaction — you can ask them out, befriend them, compliment them, start a conversation, give gifts, hook up with them, insult them, or simply spend time with them on a random activity. There are, however, some unique interactions that are unique to being a member of a crime syndicate in the BitLife universe.
You can put a Contract on a fellow syndicate member’s head by delegating the dirty deed to someone below you in the pecking order. You can also Expose them as a confidential informant, or rat, Snitch on them if it’s you who’s working for the feds as an informant, or simply Whack them, or in other words, kill them yourself.
We shall discuss the various Crimes you can commit to generate income for the family in the very next tip, as well as the Informant option later on in this guide. Leave allows you to stop reporting to the family, which is fairly benign if you haven’t been “made” yet as an official member, but potentially fatal if you’re already a made man or woman and decide to leave anyway. Promotion lets you ask your superior for a promotion, much like you would in the game’s various honest, 9-to-5 jobs, and Work Harder lets you exert more effort into your evil deeds.
Most Of The Crime Options Remain The Same, But You Can’t Keep All The Money
The Bank Robbery, Burglary, Grand Theft Auto, Pickpocket, Porch Pirate, Shoplift, and Train Robbery options are all carryovers from the main Crime menu under Activities, and with that in mind, they require little introduction at this point. The mechanics are very similar, though you will generally want to avoid Pickpocket, Porch Pirate, and Shoplift due to the fact that these are very low-stakes endeavors, and even more so when you’re in the mob.
In any case, though, your success rate when pulling off each of these crimes will be much higher if you’re part of a crime family, though if you commit the same crime too often over a short period of time, the law will get wise to your activities and that could reduce your success rate for some time. Sports cars, luxury cars, high-end SUVs, and supercars also remain much harder to steal than worn-out beaters or affordable compacts like the Toyota Prius and Kia Optima.
Regardless of the crime option you choose, you will be asked whether you want to contribute the stolen money (or stolen car) to the family or keep it to yourself. Naturally, the former option would be the safer one in terms of maintaining good standing and avoiding some form of physical punishment from your higher-ups. But here’s why we mentioned above that Pickpocket, Porch Pirate, and Shoplift, are not recommended — you will only receive a percentage of the money or the value of the car you have stolen!
If you’re a low-ranked member of the family, meaning an Associate or a Soldier, you will receive a 10 percent cut. This figure goes up to 25 percent if you’re a Captain, and gets further doubled to 50 percent if you’re an Underboss. Syndicate bosses, such as Godfathers, get a 75 percent cut, though we’re going to dive deeper into this once we discuss the process of becoming the top-ranked officer in your organization.
Extorting Local Businesses – New Feature In The Mafia Update
The one unique crime option introduced via the Mafia Update is Extortion, and this allows you to visit a local business and extort the owner or proprietor for up to $25,000 per instance. Once you’ve chosen a business and the amount of money you wish to extort, you will typically see a dialog box detailing the owner’s reaction to your extortion attempt, the amount of money they’re willing to pay (sometimes, they won’t be willing to pay anything at all), and the level of fear. If you choose to extort a lower amount, you’ll usually be able to do so without any dialog box popping up.
Underneath the Fear meter for each business owner, you’ll see four choices — you can either take the lowball offer, whack them, scare them, or shake them down. The first option is self-explanatory, as you’re essentially settling on a lower amount than what you were expecting. The “whack” option is best used on owners who refuse to play along — you can choose from a variety of gruesome ways to kill the owner.
You won’t end up with any money, but this will force a change in ownership and bring in someone who may be willing to fork over more money or easier to intimidate when you make a return visit. As we’ve noticed, each NPC owner has a fixed level of fear and has certain tendencies when it comes to the money they pay.
Scaring an owner allows you to slash their tires, break their car windows, throw them out of a window, or perform a number of other non-lethal actions that aren’t as damaging as the ones available via shakedown. We would suggest this for those whose Fear bar is at least 75 percent full.
Lastly, shaking down an owner would involve injuring them by taking a sledgehammer to their kneecap, pulling their teeth out, or ripping apart their toenails, among other brutal choices. This usually works best on those whose Fear meter is about 30 to 75 percent filled up, though you can also shake down someone whose Fear is substantially greater.
Like the other available crime options, Extortion could lead to an arrest if you get caught — business owners, regardless of how scared they are at first, may opt to call the cops if you’re not able to sufficiently scare them or shake them down. You may also get sloppy while whacking those owners and catch the attention of the law, leading to an arrest and murder charges.
As usual, you’ll need to turn in the money you extort to the bosses in order to maintain good standing within the family. Also, you can only make one visit a year to each of the available businesses!
Becoming A ‘Made Man’ And Rising Up The Ranks
As an Associate, you will generally be treated as little more than pond scum during your first few years in the mob. Higher-ranking members will refuse to start a conversation with you, and if you try to compliment them, they will invariably ignore you — getting snubbed by a high-ranking officer may even warrant a beating or, at the very least, a stern lecture from your boss!
But once your boss asks you to carry out a contract hit on someone to prove yourself to the family, that’s the sign that you’ve done enough to earn their trust, so you’ll want to take that opportunity if you’re decided on being a part of their organization.
Granted, carrying out a contract killing is similar to murdering someone via the usual Crime menu — you may or may not get caught by the cops, your victim may or may not choose to retaliate against you, and there’s a small chance they may try to turn the tables on you and kill you instead. The methods in which you can murder them will also be the same — Drive-By, Poison, Push Down Stairs, and all the other options you’re familiar with will still be in place.
But the chances of killing your target will generally be higher, especially if you chose Crime as a Special Talent. Once you’ve proven yourself that way, you will be asked if you want to take the oath as a Soldier within the family — taking the oath means you cannot leave the family in any way, shape, or form (including using the Leave option), and may risk getting killed if you choose to do so.
In order to ensure yourself of the best chances of quick promotion from Soldier to Captain/Caporegime/similar middle-tier positions, we would first recommend bringing in about $50,000 to $100,000 per year through the various crime options. Bank robberies are the highest-risk. highest-reward way to bring in that money, so we would recommend pulling off one a year at the very most to reduce your chances of getting arrested.
Extortion is often good for the maximum $25,000 per attempt, though some business owners may be particularly stingy or stubborn, in which case you may want to take note of their name and business and whack them the next time you come back, thus boosting your Notoriety. Grand Theft Auto is a fairly easy way to generate income, unless you’re trying to steal an expensive car like a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or (especially) a Bugatti or a Rolls-Royce, and that also applies to Burglary, albeit with lesser cash rewards.
Most of the other options bring in a negligible amount of money, and Train Robbery only works at certain times of the day. But if you carry out a big heist at the bank or are able to steal an expensive car, you can expect to be sent for by your boss for some complimentary words and then some.
Building up Notoriety is also key to quick promotion, and aside from whacking uncooperative business owners, getting arrested also helps in boosting this stat, albeit only slightly. It will be better, though, if you end up getting acquitted of your charges. Then you’ve also got the Relationship bar to take into account — it may take some time, but it helps to be friends with as many family members as possible!
Last, but not least, you should always follow your boss or immediate superior’s orders, may it be to rough up or kill somebody or to join them in certain activities. When it comes to the former, you will encounter certain choices, such as delegating the duty to someone else, outright refusing the order, or making up an excuse. The latter two could get you into trouble and could lead to a beating or a serious drop in your Standing, while delegating duties will invariably put you in a less favorable light with your boss, though not as unfavorable as it would be if you tried to weasel out of your duties or refuse to do them outright.
Although their effect won’t be that significant in the grand scheme of things, some of the random scenarios may have some bearing on your Notoriety and/or Standing, especially the latter. For example, if you encounter a situation where you’re asked if you wish to take the opportunity to pocket some extra cash or turn it in to the family, always pick the latter.
Nicknames Are Assigned At Random
One of the first things you may have noticed upon entering the world of organized crime as an Associate is the fact that most of the family members have their own nicknames. Chances are you may have searched high and low for a feature that would allow you to choose your own nickname — for example, one of our test characters was given the same birth name as the mob boss in The Simpsons, so we were hoping we could give him the nickname Fat Tony, much like his cartoon equivalent. Unfortunately, that option does not exist at this point.
About a few years after officially joining a criminal organization as a Soldier, it will be your fellow syndicate members who will assign you a random nickname. Most of the time, your character’s actual first name will remain intact — using the above example, Anthony D’Amico became Anthony Forefingers, which is no Fat Tony, but he did, at least, get to keep his first name.
However, there may be instances where you would be given a completely different moniker that has nothing to do with your forename or surname. If you’re unhappy with the nickname you were given, you can always quit BitLife, restart the game, and hit the Age button again in hopes of getting a better or more logical-sounding nickname within the family.
How To Quickly Become A Crime Boss In BitLife
Depending on which syndicate you join, you could one day become a Godfather/Godmother, Chairman/Chairwoman, Czar/Czarina, Compadre/Madrina, or Skipper. But as we explained earlier, you will always start out at the very bottom of the barrel, and you’ll need to make the higher-ups happy all throughout your stay in the mob if you want to move up the ranks.
However, that progress may become slower once you reach the position right below Underboss, and you may notice people who were underneath you at one point get promoted to Underboss, or even to Godfather/etc. once those high-ranking officers die or get killed. What should you do if you want to fast-track your rise to the top of your chosen criminal organization?
The most organic way to do this would be, as previously advised, to bring in lots of money and use Work Harder whenever possible to improve your Standing, keep your Notoriety high by roughing up or killing lots of people along the way, maintain a good Relationship with the rest of the family, and always follow orders. The latter seems to be especially important when it comes to getting promoted to the top two positions.
However, one occasionally risky, yet potentially rewarding path you could take is to scroll to the very bottom of the screen when viewing an Underboss or Boss profile and choose the Whack option to kill the people ahead of you in the pecking order. You can also try Contract, though you can only have someone who’s underneath you — and not your friend — carry out the contract killing.
The above strategy won’t always lead to a promotion, and there’s a chance your crewmates won’t take nicely to the fact that you killed your Underboss or Boss, thus putting your virtual life at risk. And if you choose Contract, there’s a chance that the person you delegate will take offense to your request out of loyalty to your target — that could also lead to a beating or a whacking! But we’ve seen the technique work quite a few times, so you could consider this as a last resort.
Once you become Godfather or hold a similar top-ranked position, you will receive 75 percent of all the money earned through the different criminal activities — for example, shaking down a business owner for the full $25,000 would net you $18,750.
You will, however, still have to report to an unseen, unnamed “boss” during certain situations, such as whenever they want to compliment you for a job well done. You will also have to maintain your Standing, Notoriety, and Relationship bars if you don’t want to get on the bad side of the unseen greater power behind your syndicate, so don’t get complacent even if you’ve reached the very top of the criminal mountain!
Rival Syndicates Could Kill Your Loved Ones Or Your Crewmates
Being a made member of the mob through BitLife’s Mafia Update makes it easier than usual to commit all sorts of crimes, as long as you commit them using the options in the Job menu, as we have established. However, it could also put your loved ones in great danger, as there’s a random possibility that your friends or (blood) family members could end up getting whacked by members of the rival syndicate!
Unfortunately, the game still does not have an option where you can take revenge on your rivals and avenge your loved one’s death — in fact, the only crime family visible to you would be the one you’re currently a part of, so don’t expect any of the intense feuds between Mafia families you may have seen in the movies. We are, however, hoping that such a feature becomes available in the near future.
In addition, it is also possible for members of your syndicate to get killed in rather violent ways as part of the random events that take place after you hit on the Age button. Likewise, there is no option to avenge their deaths at the moment — it will be business as usual for you and your crew, and new people will end up joining your syndicate, with one or more members also getting promoted in the process.
Watch Out For Rats Within The Family
We’re going to discuss the process of becoming an informant against your crime family in the very next tip, but before we get to that, we should warn you that it is possible for informants to infiltrate your ranks and ultimately rat on everyone in the syndicate. Notice that crew member who keeps asking you to join them at a concert, eat dinner with them, or do any one of the many activities you can do in BitLife via the Spend Time option?
You may also notice that it wouldn’t take much buttering up — if any at all — for you to make friends with this person. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it usually is, and that these individuals are actually informants trying to take the whole crew down. And once you get caught by the feds in such situations, you’ll more often than not be up for a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.
Granted, there is no 100 percent foolproof way to definitively pin someone down as an informant. Some family members may actually be nice people if you don’t take their penchant for criminal activities into account, and it’s also possible you may have gained their trust to the point they’re willing to make friends with you.
So with that said, if your syndicate gets busted by an informant, take note of the person’s name, quit the app and restart it, then before hitting on Age, tap on their name in the Family menu, then choose the Expose option to expose them as a rat. This will allow the rest of your crew to whack the informant before they have a chance to spill the beans to the feds.
The above technique appears to work very well for those situations where you’re confident that someone is snitching on you. But what if you’re relying solely on a hunch and turn out to be wrong? This could lead to one of two situations — first, the person you wrongly suspected of being a rat will take offense at your accusations and attack you, or even kill you if they have the right weapon. If that doesn’t happen, you may be sent for by your boss for a torture session or an outright whacking!
Becoming An Informant – How To Rat On Your Syndicate
As it is in the real world, BitLife’s Mafia Update also allows players to snitch on their syndicate in exchange for a lifetime of freedom and their entire criminal record getting erased. You can do that by choosing the Informant option under the Job sub-menu, or you can also take that option if you get arrested by the police, sent to court, and given a choice between becoming a confidential informant or serving a jail sentence for your crimes.
Should you choose to become an informant and the law allows you to cooperate with them in bringing your crew down, you will be given a certain number of years, usually around four to five, in order to gather enough evidence. This can be done by tapping on Family, tapping on any member of your crew, then scrolling down and choosing the Snitch option to gather evidence.
Make sure you’re choosing the right people to collect information from — preferably, these should be people within the crime family whom you are already friends with, and most importantly, high-ranking officers if possible. Typically, you will be unsuccessful if you try to snitch on a crew member whose Relationship bar is red or orange — these people will certainly be on the cagey side, considering how they wouldn’t even give you the time of day in normal circumstances!
The case progress, as seen in the Confidential Informant tab on the top part of the Job menu, will move faster if you, for example, snitch on a Mafia Godfather/Godmother or Underboss, as opposed to a lowly Associate. Even if the Evidence bar is red or orange, you should get a solid amount of info from the top officers, though you’ll only want to do this once per year before hitting on the Age button.
There is, of course, a lot of risk involved when working as an Informant. This appears to be especially true if the Evidence bar is green, but there is a possibility that the person you’re collecting information from will get wise to your scheme and accuse you of gathering evidence against them. Once this happens, you can deny the allegations or admit them, or you can whack them before they let the higher-ups know.
Denying won’t always convince them that you aren’t doing anything, and admitting that you actually are won’t really help either — most of the time, you’ll end up being called to your boss’ office to be tortured, or even killed. Beating them to the punch by killing them is sometimes more effective, but you also run the risk of them fighting back, or the higher-ups getting upset that you killed a trusted crew member.
While you may continue committing crimes on behalf of your boss while working as an informant, so as to maintain your good standing and not arouse any suspicions, you should, at all costs, avoid getting arrested! If you’re apprehended by the cops and convicted of committing a crime during the time you’re being asked to gather evidence, that will end your time as an informant and send you to the slammer. This becomes trickier due to how it appears much harder to successfully pull off all crimes (except Grand Theft Auto) while working behind the scenes as a rat.
Bear in mind that there may be times when the feds won’t be interested in having you help them out as an informant. This would typically happen when you’ve got an especially lengthy criminal record that no amount of snitching would justify wiping out. So if you want to turn on your crew and help the cops in order to get off scot-free for all your crimes, do so during your first few years or so in your syndicate, and make sure you don’t get busted!
What happens if you fail in your objective to find enough incriminating information? If you are unable to gather the required evidence within the stipulated time period, you will face racketeering charges, regardless whether or not you committed any crimes during your time as an informant!
Should You Enter Witness Protection Or Take Your Chances At Home?
Finally, once you’ve filled up the Case bar under Confidential Informant, you will be told that your crime family has been convicted on “multiple” charges, and that all charges against you have been dropped. You will then be given two choices of destination as part of the Witness Protection Program, both of which will force you to migrate to another country.
Regardless of which city/country you choose, you will be given a new name and a chance to start a new life. It goes without saying that you should keep your nose clean during this time period, lest you get kicked out of the program and sent to jail.
You will also have a third option, which is to “take [your] chances” at home and not enter witness protection. If you choose to go that route, be prepared for great danger — your former crewmates will start out by leaving threatening packages or messages at your home, and at some point, they may confront you in person in one of those random scenarios that pop up after aging.
Once this takes place, you can either attack them, run for your life, beg for forgiveness, or try to reason with them — none of these options are particularly safe, given that your status as a rat made you a marked man or woman from the moment you were offered a spot in the Witness Protection Program. That means there’s a good chance they may end up whacking you for ratting on them!
Pretty much, your best and only choice should be to enter witness protection if you’re trying to clean up your act and go back to living your character’s best virtual life after that stint in a crime family.