Social gaming company Zynga‘s newest game, “Mafia Wars 2,” is now available to play on Facebook. It is the first official sequel to a Zynga game and was built by the same team that created “Mafia Wars.” It combines some elements from its predecessor with those from some other Zynga games.

Similar to “Adventure World” and “FrontierVille” chapter “The Pioneer Trail,” Zynga’s latest game is a story-driven affair. When it begins, you are released from prison after 5 years and are immediately challenged by your crime boss to control some new turf that has opened up. However, you’re soon betrayed and must take revenge to seize back your assets.

There’s a big emphasis on player vs. player combat in “Mafia Wars 2” (which was first revealed in a teaser trailer last month), while the game brings back familiar elements from its predecessor, such as recruiting Facebook friends to your crew, fighting your rivals, taking on crime bosses and the chance to visit your friends’ turfs to boost your character’s abilities and expand your criminal empire.

There are 3 ways to make progress in the game:

• Lock Your Land: Collect cash by building your turf and hiring workers to do the dirty work for you. There are more than 100 decorations for you to choose from to make your home turf a little more personal. For instance, you can build casinos, weapon shops, distilleries and banks.

• Savage Saga: You’ll have the chance to travel across 7 different words to carry out your revenge, battle crime bosses and grow your empire.

• Battles & Bloodshed: At launch, you can visit 3 different fight arenas, where you’ll be able to battle other players and try to rob them. Once you’ve successfully robbed a rival, that player will be added to your rival bar where you can rob them again. You can receive some support from your friends, who will be on hand to help you defend your turf from attack and repair it after any damage is caused.

There are more than 300 types of weapons, armor and vehicles at launch and you’ll have more than 600 pieces of clothing which you can use to customize your character.

Erik Bethke, general manager of Mafia Wars 2, said:

Our goal with Mafia Wars 2 was to build on the Mafia Wars franchise in a way that feels familiar to our loyal players, yet provides a brand new world of criminal mischief to explore. The game makes fighting a visceral, social experience and wraps it in a story and art style that we think our players will love. Believe us when we say that Mafia Wars 2 is unlike anything Zynga has released before. We can’t wait to let our players in on the social mayhem.

This is the latest of several major game launches for Zynga this year. In addition to the aforementioned “Adventure World” (which will soon receive a significant new character in the form of Indiana Jones), the company has also launched “Empires & Allies.” Zynga recently teamed up with Enrique Iglesias for an in-game “CityVille” promotion, while it partnered with Farmers Insurance for a “Café World” integration. Last month, it was revealed that Zynga’s profits in the 3 months to June 30 had dropped by more than 90 percent from the previous quarter.

“Mafia Wars 2” supports 16 languages at launch — English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Turkish, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Japanese and Thai. You can check out the game now by installing it on Facebook.