The mountain roads have paved the way for the arrival of the most important machinery for the coming century. Gone are the days of dirt roads, as the automobile has come.
This one, though, belongs to someone who has not even been born yet, in a future decade from now, when taxicabs are coming into popularity.
Mafia: The Old Country is the series set in the Sicilian mountains, where most, if not all, of the organised crime families throughout the series originate from. It tells the stories of how the proverbial crime family sausage is made, and while a bit cliché at times, it’s still quite compelling.
Presentation
The moment you first boot up the game, to even towards the end of its storyline, the game still stands as one of the most unique-looking among the peers of action games, even with the new game engine now powering it.
Gone are the Fusion Engine but Hangar 13’s usage of Unreal Engine 5 has made the game both looking pretty, and also have the current bells and whistle of the industry with the likes of Ray Tracing Illumination and the ability to use the FidelityFX Super Resolution to make it run on more contemporary PC setups, like the Lenovo GO S for an example.
But it does suffer from stuttering and even frame dips on cutscene transitions and some points of the game at times on my RTX 2060-powered Acer Nitro V laptop during this review. And you can forget running it on the Steam Deck for now, as it suffers from the frame-rate dipping below 30fps, even with an aggressive FSR usage and Frame Generation, hence it being listed as unsupported on Steam.
This doesn’t put that bad of a mark on the game itself, mind you. Its motion capture and story that the game presents feel as movie-esque as you want it to be. To the point that it might have taken direct homages to not only their previous games (that are set in the future) but some pages of a certain series that also deals with Sicilian crime families, to the point that I kind of feel it was like some plot points were bound to happen, unintentionally or not.
The audio side is also top-notch, with the voice acting being the highlight, as it usually is for the Mafia games. Like the VO cast reacting in Italian flawlessly even after the dialogue being mostly in English, just makes the experience more engaging.
The game’s music, too, just fits the overarching story to a tee, the essence of old-world Italia that you would expect from this era, without insisting upon itself and even has tracks that feel like it’s something out of a Spaghetti Western, perhaps a few eras ahead from where this game takes place, but it fits.
Gameplay
The gameplay side does feel similar to its predecessors, with how our main protagonist, Enzo, moves and how he handles the combat side being more akin to Tommy in Mafia 1 than, say, war veteran Lincoln Clay from Mafia 3, with the guns swaying more before you’re able to land a shot. Which makes sense since our man in charge isn’t an outlaw but someone climbing the ranks from Miner to someone in the Family. 
The melee combat, on the other hand, feels a bit clunky. It isn’t like 2K’s other series that’s set during this era, but it mostly turns into a sort of back-and-forth fighting stance that’s similar to something out of the Infinity Blade series, which takes me back somewhat. And that isn’t a negative point in my view, since it does give way to some satisfying fights with a few bosses during my playthrough.
Though the complaints about its linear objective being stale, with some variation like getting to meet the love interest before continuing on the main quest, sound reasonable. The usual suspect for these complaints, like the many variations of mundane tasks and the usual shooting gallery, does get broken up with some racing on both horseback and automobiles, but it’s the same format as its previous instalment a few years back. The complaints are valid, and while I do enjoy seeing how it goes, it does feel formulaic now, and not as engaging as Mafia 2 was.
One part of the collectables that the series is known for now has some gameplay advantages in the form of charms, where you can get buffs during combat encounters that can help players on their journey, be it a better timing for stealth takedowns or more ammo you can collect for your guns. It’s something to look around for as you traverse the sprawling map at points, or even after a chapter bit when the action slows down for a while.
Content
You are looking at a game that’s perhaps shorter than you would think, much like how the Mafia 1 remake was. It’s a 10 to 12-hour game from start to finish, twists and turns of the sort included. It’s engaging enough to be glued to the screen, and see how the relationship blossoms for Enzo and his newfound family, or falter as the chapters go by.
And speaking of the aforementioned collectables, besides the charms that can help you along the way, the usual collectathon stuff that littered around the map is here as well, from artistic pieces of mysterious foxes (you know, art!) to newspaper that you can collect that hints of something brewing at that time, a certain Archduke doing the rounds from one of the clipping mentions, or even just taking pictures of the picture-esques landscapes of Sicily, collecting them using the Test a Vehicle feature is quite a nice escape from the constant chapter turning story, while the game awaits a proper Freeroam mode.
Personal Enjoyment![]()
To me, Mafia has always been a fascinating game, with ideas and settings that could rival the Don of this action-adventure crime game, but most often than not, it falters at some points of the game. And the last Mafia game in the series with a pretty solid ending was the 3rd one (which also had multiple choices), but this one is just sad.
Like I won’t spoil it here, but man, all of the story beats just crescendos into something that I knew was coming, but was sad either way. Perhaps it would have topped the first one had it not been telegraphed like a few chapters earlier.
Would I replay it? Probably not, since Mafia 2 is still my go-to game in the series to immerse myself into the golden era of Mobsters, but it’s nice to see how the Old Country blends itself into that 2nd game quite well, with some familiar faces you see older in the 2nd game, have cameos in this one.
Verdict![]()
Mafia: The Old Country is an interesting and immersive ride towards the old times that had shaped the crime families that you might know in the previous games. Though its gameplay loops are a bit formulaic at this point and most of the game has issues with its graphics at times, it’s still something you should experience as their narrative is still its strongest point.
Played on PC, Review copy provided by 2K Asia.
Mafia: The Old Country
An interesting and immersive ride towards the old times that had shaped the crime families that you might know in the previous games.
- Presentation 9
- Gameplay 7
- Content 8.5
- Personal Enjoyment 7