The Mafia franchise has had a rough journey. Whilst the first two were great games, they sadly underperformed in sales and unfortunately, Mafia III was a bit of a misstep for the franchise. Whilst maintaining a solid enough story and characters, its  gameplay suffered from repetitive open-world bloat and enough glitches to make Cyberpunk blush. Mafia: The Old Country revitalises the franchise by focusing on what it does best: crime family drama. It may not be the instant classic I was hoping it’d be, but it’s still worth a look.

Story 

Set in 1900s Sicily, Mafia: The Old Country tells the story of Enzo Favara, a poor man working in sulfur mines. After a cave-in, Enzo escapes the slave life and stumbles into the Sicilian Mafia run by Don Torrisi. Enzo decides to stay with the Torrisi family, building their trust and making new friendships and starting again in the life of crime.

The story of the Mafia games has always been its strongest point. With compelling villains, “heroes”, and anything in between, in a world run by powerful crime families. Thankfully, that remains the same here as we explore Enzo’s life as a slave and his progression into a hardened member of the Torrisi crime family. This is arguably the strongest protagonist in the franchise, and it’s helped along with a solid supporting cast. Don Torrisi is a terrifyingly calm and surgical leader who rarely shows weakness, whilst Caesere is Enzo’s partner throughout the adventure, showing Enzo the ropes before becoming good friends and allies. 

It’s a thrilling story with plenty of twists and turns, that both lean into some of the tropes and cliches of the genres, whilst also making some surprising turns. It leads the way for what I personally would consider one of the strongest stories in the franchise, and up there with Mafia 2. Even if some of the final chapters do have a slight dip in quality. 

Gameplay

Mafia: The Old Country is a slow-burning, story-driven experience. You will be spending a good bulk of the game simply exploring the world and talking with some of your allies, especially in the slow opening hours, where it’ll take a few hours before you are even thrown into the first major combat sections. Even then, these moments are scattered throughout. If you don’t like that approach, then this might not be for you, but the incredible character writing more than makes up for it. 

Whenever you are thrown into combat, you will face enemies in either a 1v1 knife fight or a gunfight, taking on groups of enemies at a time. Melee is functional, with Enzo able to dodge and parry attacks with some attacks that can only be dodged. There’s some pride in the melee system, as Mafia will try to throw a knife fight in at random times, even if it doesn’t make sense in the story. 

Eventually, you will gain access to a small arsenal of firearms for some intense shootouts. It’s pretty standard Gears of War style combat, you take cover, pop out and can sprint between cover. It certainly won’t blow you away, but the setting and intensity carry it. The guns are, of course, era-appropriate and all feel weighty and powerful, easily able to take out most enemies with a single well-placed headshot. It’s satisfying enough to carry the combat scenarios. 

There’s also a fairly basic stealth system that, outside of a few encounters, is optional to take part in. AI is relatively dumb, and you can get away with quite a lot, throwing coins or bottles to distract guards and choke them out before they return to their easy-to-predict patrols.  As a whole, the core gameplay of Mafia: The Old Country can be best described as functional. The game does a good job of mixing things up regularly. One moment, you will be stacking crates (of course) and then getting into shootouts, riding horses or getting into a car race. Whilst the mechanics are never mindblowing, the gameplay variety keeps the game moving at a solid pace. It never lingers for too long. 

Mafia: The Old Country, being a ten hour adventure, seemed to be a source of controversy leading up to the release. This one baffled me, especially considering the first two entries were also shorter games. Even though they can be fun, not every game needs to be a 100+ hour open-world adventure like Assassin’s Creed, which often suffers from bloat. Sometimes games like The Last of Us or A Plague Tale, which offer self-contained, epic, and personal adventures, can be just as rewarding and enjoyable. And for Mafia, that’s the same. Whilst it’s a heavily flawed game, it’s one that I did enjoy for bringing the series back to its roots and focusing on those character interactions. 

That’s not to say there isn’t some exploring to do. Mafia: The Old Country has a moderately sized open world that you can explore. There are no sidequests or even random shootouts that you can get involved in, but they instead serve as a way to move you from one area to the next more naturally. Mafia 1 and 2 also did this, and whilst unusual, the concept behind it was thrilling enough, and you could at least interact with the world. In Old Country, there’s nothing to interact with; no random shootouts and no police chases to mess around with, and considering the random RPG-lite elements, such as buying new cars and horses that are only used a few times in the story and the hidden charms that offer perks, it feels unnecessary.  It often feels like Mafia: The Old Country had grander ambitions that left me conflicted.

Graphics and Sound 

Mafia: The Old Country has a mixed presentation on display, with a lower budget being apparent. Cutscenes look magnificent with excellent lighting that emphases the dark criminal underworld. Sicily can also look stunning, with incredible Italian vistas and dense towns. However, look too closely and the cracks start to form, with reduced draw distance and muddy texture work. It’s an uneven look that can look spectacular one moment then dull and drab the next. 

The PC version is a little underwhelming as well, with performance issues going in and out of cutscenes. Often times with rampant stuttering that hangs around for a few seconds. Especially when moving faster around the game. However, it is nice to see full ultrawide support for both gameplay and cutscenes. And the performance issues don’t get too much in the way during scripted chase sequences or gunplay. 

Unfortunately, the Sicilian voice acting does not come lip-synched. A missed opportunity to massively increase immersion into the game world. It’s a shame, as the Sicilian voice acting is stellar, but the English voice acting is just as good. Notably, the main cast members effectively convey all the emotions and nuances in the story. I tried both to get an idea, and for me, the lip sync for Sicilian was enough of a deal breaker to switch back to English. Just something to be aware of. 

Verdict

Mafia: The Old Country is a mostly triumphant return to the long-running franchise, even if it’s very different from its previous entries. I appreciate the risks taken with the new setting, and I have to say I enjoyed the fact its scope was somewhat toned down after the mixed results brought by Mafia III. Its gameplay was indeed generic, but the game more than made up for that shortcoming with a thrilling story. It certainly won’t be a game that will resonate with everyone, but it did for me at the end of the day.

 

Graphics: 6.5 Thanks to the muddy visuals the presentation is less than stellar, but when it works, it looks incredible.	Gameplay: 6.0 Mafia: The Old Country does nothing particularly exciting with the gameplay. That being said, it’s not functionally bad. It’s just bog-standard.
Sound: 9.0 Great voice acting all-round in both the Sicilian and English voice acting, with a great soundtrack to go alongside the 1900 setting.	Fun Factor: 7.5 A thrilling story let-down by the not so thrilling gameplay experience. This won’t be for everyone, but I have to say it was for me.
Final Verdict: 7.0

Mafia: The Old Country is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. 

Reviewed on PC with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4070 and 32GB RAM.

A copy of Mafia: The Old Country was provided by the publisher.