Mafia: The Old Country review — An offer I can’t refuse

We just don't get games like this anymore. Sure, there are third-person adventure games out there, but a lot of them have eschewed a linear experience for something open-world. There are plenty of examples of where that has actively hurt some of them, with bloated objectives exceeding the quality that a focused game can provide. Mafia: The Old Country wants to bring you back to an older time in gaming. Now that I’ve rolled the credits, I can confirm they’ve done exactly that, and to great effect.

Mafia: The Old Country is a prequel to the previous games. Set in Sicily, Italy, you play as Enzo, a young peasant working in a sulphur mine. Along with one of your friends, you’ve been working hard to earn your way to America, Empire Bay specifically (yes, Mafia II’s Empire Bay). During a recon task in which you locate a mining team dead from gas inhalation, you barely make it back alive, but sans your friend. After an intense fight with one of the mobsters running the operation, Enzo makes it to a horse and gets himself out of there during the tremors coming from the not-so-dormant volcano.

In the midst of this escape, Enzo unfortunately finds himself still tracked down by the Spadaro family. Even though you can make it past the grunts and do well in the boss-like knife fight, Enzo is in trouble as the Spadaros close in. Thankfully, Enzo is just far enough into Torrisi territory and making enough noise that they come through. Don Torrisi isn’t happy to see his family's rivals on his turf, and takes you in to spite them. While the last twenty-four hours haven’t been kind to Enzo, his luck seems to be finally turning around.

Thus begins a tangled web of a tale. Drama is the name of the game, with constant family matters occupying the spotlight. Enzo is regularly pulled into these conflicts, maybe because he’s a no-name peon that wouldn’t be missed if something went wrong, or maybe just because he’s a loveable scamp that everyone is rooting for. Either way, the squabbles you find yourself in are a mix of ones that don’t really matter, and those of dire importance.

Like a De Dietrich 24Hp Tourer, Mafia: The Old Country takes a second to get running. The first few chapters of The Old Country are a lot of learning the gameplay, with the linear stages being extremely narrow. This all moves quite slowly. Even once you make it to the fourth and fifth chapter where the open-world makes its appearance – as good as they are – you feel the squeeze of your mission compelling you to stick to your task at hand. If you’re expecting the open-world of the Mafia 3, this could be a bad thing, but if you prefer the more linear first and second game, you know what to expect here.

Still, from beginning to end, I loved everything about Mafia: The Old Country’s narrative. Besides the crawl of the opening, the pace of the story itself is fair, keeping you invested at each turn. There are plenty of unexpected twists that will leave you mouth agape, as well as special moments that make you smile. You’ll also witness several tragedies – unsurprising for a Mafia game – that will leave a knot in your stomach. A full range of emotions comes from The Old Country, and in the best ways possible.

Whether significant or not, these stories are expertly presented. The Old Country often feels like an interactive movie, with cutscenes that feel meaningful rather than filler. Where these could easily have felt purely expository, emotion is felt in every frame, with the plights and successes of the Torrisi clan on full display.

This works because of the tremendous cast of characters. Riccardo Frascari’s Enzo is completely believable, with his rags to riches arc defined by his being torn between loyalty and love. Carina Conti’s Isabella Torrisi might be the star of the entire game, giving outstanding performance after outstanding performance. Enzo and Isabella’s first interaction is incredibly heartwarming and that feeling sticks throughout the game, with their story having an almost “Anakin and Padme” quality… at least the sweet parts. Alberto Frezza does an amazing job as Luca, Enzo’s mentor, and both Johnny Santiago and Anthony Skordi do their roles of Don Torrisi and Tino justice as the leaders of the mafia clan Enzo joins.

Supporting these phenomenal performances is the writing, which raises them even higher. What surprises me most is how well these characters are developed without a lot of extra exposition. Many times you’re run through a bunch of boring dialogue to set up a character or their motivations; in The Old Country it all occurs naturally. By the end, I loved or hated the characters based on my interactions with them rather than an exposition dump. You grow with the cast, which is absolute perfection from the Hangar 13 team.

Speaking of the end, I both love and hate it, which I think makes it great. I don’t agree with every decision of the consequences of the finale, but I respect the choices. All of the buildup to the conclusion pays off, with one of the most bombastic endings in Mafia history. The panache of the two final missions and fights is epic, in both the dramatic presentation and over-the-top, movie-esque quality. The finale is chef’s kiss, whether you like the results or not.

Moving into the gameplay, it’s nice to see a game that simply does things right. The Old Country will remind you a lot of how the first and second game played, although I personally see a little Uncharted in flow, without the climbing around. You are not going to be wowed by the third-person action gameplay, but it is a great canvas for the story to rest upon. It’s not a bad thing to be solid in this category, and Mafia: The Old Country is exactly that.

Your main challenge in Mafia: The Old Country is opposing thugs. You can take them head on, but many missions also give you the opportunity to go through quietly. This stealth aspect is nice, but it’s a bit flat, as The Old Country doesn’t offer much in terms of verticality or climbing. While it doesn’t hurt the experience, I do think it could have elevated it to add a bit of verticality to these sections. Familiar mechanics are abundant, sneaking behind chest-high walls and boxes, throwing coins or glass bottles to distract enemies, and of course choking them out from behind or knifing them for a quicker takedown.

The knife is an important part of Mafia: The Old Country. While many games may focus on the gunplay – and The Old Country doesn’t shy away from it – your knife choice is paramount to your accomplishments. Opening locks and taking advantage of knife takedowns is dependent on what knife you choose. Each knife has so many “charges”, and doing an action outside of a face-to-face fight uses a charge. There are also perks to think about, as some knives may offer auto-looting of a body after an assassination, regaining health, or the ability to perform special counters, to name a few. If you’re going to spend time thinking about one item to choose for your kit, it needs to be your knife.

Knives are so engrained into this game, that they’re the primary way you engage in boss fights. Every final fight is a square up with your knife, and they can be quite thrilling. I’ll admit that the mid-game fights can be a bit of a bore; you are largely doing the same actions with each fight, as the bosses aren’t truly varied enough. That said, the ending fights benefit from the narrative framework behind them, boosting them to be some of the best moments of The Old Country.

There are quite a few different guns available in The Old Country as well. If you want to use a huge revolver, blast someone with a sawed-off shotgun, or pull out a hunting rifle, all of those are here. The classic automatic Mafia weaponry, like the Tommy gun, aren’t, as they haven’t been invented yet. Still, I had a good time getting behind cover, popping out, and delivering my lead in salvos. The gunplay is heavy in The Old Country, with it taking a moment for your crosshairs to properly shrink for an accurate shot. I like this; it’s a more realistic interpretation that asks for precision over speed. An additional surprise, the enemy AI is actually pretty decent, with shotgunners pressing towards your hiding spot, pistol wielders taking medium range fights, and riflers hanging back in hopes of picking you off.

Once you’re kitted out, you get to go into the open-world. Mafia: The Old Country takes a page from Mafia 2 in the open-world’s design. Yes, it’s open, but it’s more for set dressing than practical use. With that in mind, you have the option to completely skip several drives or rides to your mission’s starting point if you like, although I enjoyed the dialogue that often occurred on these trips. Sadly, even once you’ve unlocked the Explore option – which allows you to run around in the open-world – it doesn’t amount to more than looking for collectibles, and there are plenty.  Between newspaper clippings, Trinacrias (tri-tipped metal thingies), and more, you’ll be able to earn extra dinari to upgrade a couple of areas of Enzo’s kit or customization. These are even marked on the map, making it an easy exercise once you get out there. Hangar 13 has said they plan on adding more to this mode later on, and I hope it gets the extra love it deserves with how much space is available.

Traversing the open-world is also a lot of fun, with great mechanics behind the horses and cars. I found both to be easy to manage, which is high praise with how often I horrifically get off track with any vehicle. Both missions involving racing are also well done – we don’t have a repeat of Mafia 1’s infamous Fairplay race. If you want to customize your horse or car, there’s also a nice amount of choices here, which is a great bonus.

Enzo himself also has a decent amount of clothing in his closet. Between outfits, hats, and facial hair, you can give him quite the makeover. All of the choices are presentable, no wild outfits are present. Even so, the game has a Story Outfits setting that won’t let you pick the more colorful options unless you turn it off, that way your Enzo won’t be out of place in a cutscene.

With appearance on the mind, let’s talk about how this game looks, because Mafia: The Old Country is absolutely gorgeous. It’s at least on par with games like Uncharted 4, and possibly something like Horizon Forbidden West. I was consistently impressed with every location, with the hills of Sicily feeling alive with flora and fauna, but the craggy rocks adding to the melancholy experiences of those missions. The hair on each character is meticulously modeled and moves so realistically that I found myself mesmerized by it more than once. The meticulous detail Hangar 13 has added is appreciated and commended. Also, the pre-rendered cutscenes are on another level, adding to the grandeur of the presentation. All of this is backed by a wonderfully chosen soundtrack, with orchestral sweeps and mandolins aplenty as you take in each scene. One criticism I do have: there are a lot of repeated enemy character models.

Even though Mafia: The Old Country succeeds in many ways, there have been a few bugs along the way. There’s plenty of pop-in as you journey through the open-world even on bleeding edge hardware, and more often when you are in some of the faster cars where you can see things appear at the edge of the screen. Often you have to stand at the perfect spot for the interaction prompt to appear, such as opening doors or popping open a lock. I had the ending in-game cutscene completely bug out on me, with the audio playing but nothing on the screen. Lastly, the team is at work on an option to choose between 30fps or 60fps cutscenes, but during my playthrough the transitions were jarring unless I disabled DLSS entirely and ran the game natively.  These could be bug fixes, driver optimizations, or both, but hopefully they’ll be fixed by the time you read this at launch.