During the development of Mafia: The Old Country, Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes said the studio wanted to “go back to the roots of what fans love about the Mafia franchise” with a “deep linear narrative”.
Mafia: The Old Country is set during the 1900s in the fictional town of San Celeste, and acts as a prequel to the first game in the Mafia series – although it’s the fourth main entry in the Mafia franchise and the fifth game overall. It stars Enzo Favara, and follows his journey from labouring in sulfur mines as a child to joining the Torrisi crime family.
Currently sitting with a mixed or average score of 74 on Metacritic, the majority of critics commended its focus on tradition – whether that’s the setting in early 20th century Sicily or its narrative.
“The Old Country is a traditional video game, and that’s a good thing,” wrote The New York Times’ Yussef Cole. “Next to the trend of games as endless online experiences, it is small and discrete, like a sawed-off shotgun tucked inside a crate of lemons.”
The latest addition to the Mafia franchise has focus and its world is streamlined – something Cole compared to the more expansive yet often empty landscapes of Ubisoft titles.
“The narrative’s crescendos and reveals provide the game’s main source of excitement and discovery, distinct from the collectibles and exploration of popular open-world fare like Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry games.”
He continued: “Resisting the expectation for single-player games to be chockablock with content, The Old Country is sparing and restrained. Its pacing, especially in the first few chapters, is slow and deliberate.”
A streamlined world
It’s focused, too. The Old Country does not feature an open world in the traditional sense; players can freely explore its setting past chapter three, but the explorable area isn’t as large as some players may expect, especially in comparison to Mafia 3.
For Checkpoint Gaming’s Omi Koulas, who rated the game 8.5 out of 10, the worldbuilding of The Old Country is an “undeniable triumph” that made him “slow down” to “soak it all in” on multiple occasions.
“It’s the kind of game where I stopped on a bridge just to listen to the clip-clop of hooves and detoured into a garden to marvel at the detail on the horizon,” he wrote.
“It’s technically linear in gameplay, but the environments are drenched with so much love for detail that they feel wide open, thanks to the deep art direction and life brought to 1900s Sicily.”
Hangar 13’s approach to worldbuilding in The Old Country led Eurogamer’s Alex Donaldson, who gave the game 3 out of 5 stars, to deem it a “truncated AAA release” – a game “with big-budget values, but not dead-set on monopolising your time for 40-plus hours or forever through some live service component”.
“The Old Country gets in, tells its story, and confidently extracts itself from your brain in well under 15 hours. On the whole, I’d say it’s better for it.”
Donaldson was more critical of the “streamlined” world that The Old Country resides in, however.
“The slice of Sicily where events take place nods to an open world, but stops short of truly being one,” he noted. “You can drive around here and there at the start of chapters, but there’s no police patrols, no laundry list of side activities, no wires to tap. Instead, it’s just pretty and characterful, something that serves as a lovely backdrop to bloody affairs.
“The best open worlds strive to feel like ‘living places’; The Old Country doesn’t go for all that, and ends up instead feeling more like the best-looking Hollywood backlot in history.”
For Kotaku’s George Yang, the lack of an open world was detrimental to his experience of the game as a whole.
“The Old Country has similarities to the first Mafia game, such as a tacked-on and limited open world that players can explore either in between main objectives or in a ‘free roam’ mode,” wrote Yang, noting that there’s not much to do other than “go around and pick up collectables”.
“The open-world is an unnecessary half-measure; the game should have leaned even more fully into a linear structure”
George Yang, Kotaku
However, he did welcome the “streamlined approach” of The Old Country, especially when Mafia 3 “was criticised for its open-world bloat.”
To avoid the feeling of emptiness resulting from a lack of side missions and mini-games, Yang suggested that The Old Country should have followed a more linear structure, echoing Max Payne 3.
“The open-world is an unnecessary half-measure; the game should have leaned even more fully into a linear structure similar to Max Payne 3-style mission design and done away with the option to tool around its lifeless, uninteresting world altogether.”
Radio Times’ Cole Luke, who rated the title 3 out of 5 stars, had similar thoughts, noting that The Old Country was “best during its cutscenes” and that it’s “let down by, at times, tedious moment-to-moment gameplay and a lack of polish”.
“It’s a game I sorely wish had more time and money thrown at it,” wrote Luke.
“The moment you take back control after a wonderfully cinematic sequence, the rough edges become apparent. But as a whole, it is a decent game, with an enjoyable storyline to be had.”
Staying niche in an oversaturated genre
The NYT’s Cole suggested that The Old Country “feels somewhat dated and quaint” in a genre “with so many stories devoted to unpacking the power dynamics and emotional struggles of life in organised crime families.”
Cole notes that the overall franchise doesn’t follow the same paths laid by mafia-related media like The Sopranos, Casino, and The Irishman, instead carving out its own niche of rich storytelling.
He recalls how Mafia 3 “subverted familiar tropes by casting the mob as the bigoted villains and pitting it against the game’s hero, a Black Vietnam War veteran”. The same, however, cannot be said for The Old Country.
“Men in The Old Country are stoic and restrained until they explode with rage,” he explained. “Women are damsels and housewives who mind the children and chide their partners for their dangerous adventures.”
Luke found that the writing of The Old Country “was at times questionable”, and that there were moments where “ideally you would like to see a bit more character development” – especially early on in the game.
“I appreciate the developers need to fit an entire story into the budget and runtime,” Luke said. “But an extra 20 seconds of Enzo hesitating, soul searching and wrangling his emotions, only to succumb to protecting himself and his new life, unwittingly becoming a cog in a cycle of systemic violence that caused him so much suffering, would go a long way.”
Checkpoint Gaming’s Koulas agreed. He found that the narrative could be predictable at times, particularly with Enzo’s romantic relationship with the Don’s daughter Isabella, which he said was “straight out of the mobster playbook”.
“Each chapter builds momentum, culminating in some truly memorable missions that span the 15 hour play time”
Omi Koulas, Checkpoint Gaming
But there are bright spots, he thought. “When the story clicks, it’s gripping. One chapter, you’ll be blackmailing race organisers, and the next, you’re stealthily breaking a forger out of jail. There are even plenty of nods for fans of the Mafia series who pay attention. Each chapter builds momentum, culminating in some truly memorable missions that span the 15 hour play time.”
Cole also had criticisms of The Old Country’s “predictable narrative”, but he found the “intermittent moments” captivating, including Enzo and Isabella’s romance, making him feel “in total lock step” with Enzo.
“These are moments that could not happen in a larger game, one more full of things to do, places to see and heroic acts to accomplish,” he said.
Eurogamer’s Alex Donaldson also experienced this. At first, he “began to tune out” of Enzo’s story, but found that “sticking around really begins to pay off”.
“The narrative goes places that aren’t commonly trodden ground for these tales. The concept of life in the family as a prison as well as a route to an elegant life surges to the fore. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is an entirely original story – the ground trodden is familiar in many famous pieces of mob entertainment – but it’s framed in an interesting enough way here, especially by the standards of gaming, to properly enthrall.”
One particular aspect that enthralled Koulas was the direction of audio and language in The Old Country, which made the game a “story of smart choices”.
These choices being that it offers voice acting in the Sicilian language, which Hangar 13 collaborated with Italian studio Stormind Games to implement.
“Including full Sicilian voice acting is a stroke of genius,” wrote Koulas. “It roots the game in its cultural setting and adds immense authenticity.”
He also commended the inclusion of Italian phrases, as well as the “impressive” voice acting from the game’s English cast.
“[The Old Country] knows exactly what it is, a bloody and operatic tale of family and honour. Even if some exaggerated Italian-English accents from side NPCs verge on parody, the performances are excellent.”
Gameplay mechanics
One aspect of The Old Country that critics weren’t impressed with was its gameplay. There are three forms of combat put forth – gunplay, knifeplay, and stealth. But the implementation of these mechanics felt decades-old to Donaldson.
“The gameplay is relatively unremarkable, and in many ways it feels like elements of its design fell out of a time portal from a bygone era,” he highlighted.
“I’m reminded of some of the offbeat action-adventure games of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 eras, at least in terms of design.
“You can sense that in the structure of the missions and gameplay loop. But then the production value and narrative flair is very much of today; it’s a game of two halves. The two halves are vaguely mismatched, except, at the same time, they aren’t.”
Kotaku’s Yang held similar sentiments, feeling that the game was “dragged down” by these mechanics despite being “bolstered by memorable characters and wonderfully authentic performances”.
“While the narrative and characters have their compelling qualities, when it comes to gameplay, every single aspect of The Old Country feels like something from the late 2000s or early 2010s,” he continued. “There’s just not much depth to any of it.”
“The gameplay is relatively unremarkable, and in many ways it feels like elements of its design fell out of a time portal from a bygone era”
Alex Donaldson, Eurogamer
As for which aspect was criticised most, stealth fell short for Yang and Checkpoint Gaming’s Koulas.
“For a game with revolutionary themes, the stealth mechanics are anything but,” said Yang. “To make matters worse, there are a few stealth sections that result in an instant game over if you get caught, and those are never fun.”
Koulas added even with knifeplay and gunfights along with stealth, together the mechanics were not “intricate or revolutionary”.
And while he noted that The Old Country “wisely avoids stealth as a chore” and that “it feels satisfying when executed well”, the game’s approach to gameplay was “surface-level”.
Overall consensus
Overall, critics [felt] that Mafia: The Old Country was one of this year’s most immersive titles, but its lacklustre gameplay left more to be desired.
“[It’s] not the most inventive action game, but one of the most immersive you’ll play this year,” said Koulas. “This is a leaner, more focused Mafia game that trades scale for storytelling and worldbuilding, and in doing so, delivers something quietly special.”
Yang had similar observations, wishing that The Old Country’s gameplay wasn’t stuck in the past.
“The Old Country’s story was good enough to keep me engaged to the end with its authentic portrayal of 1900s Sicily and its superb characters,” he wrote. “It’s also too bad, however, that while the narrative travelled backwards in time for its new setting, the gameplay mechanics went along with them.”
As Radio Times’ Luke summarised: “I just so desperately wish the gameplay held a better candle to the direction and cinematic flair of the cutscenes, whose luxurious quality and intimacy are the real standout of the show.”
