Mafia: The Old Country, from developer Hangar 13, is the fourth entry within the Mafia franchise, which began in 2002. The open-world sport sequence, primarily specializing in the Italian mafia’s organized felony actions in fictional US cities, got here out lower than a 12 months after Grand Theft Auto III, which firmly established the open-world model of gaming.

Whereas the Mafia video games did not have the mayhem of GTA, what they provided as an alternative was a compelling storyline that stored you glued to your controller. Mafia: The Old Country, nevertheless, would not have that or a lot else, as the sport lacks a lot of the substance in its massive, open world that made earlier video games so wealthy and pleasant.

In The Previous Nation, gamers step into the position of Enzo, a younger man who was offered to a sulfur mine in Sicily by his father to repay his money owed in 1904. Establishing the sport in Italy is a departure for the sequence, which had beforehand adopted mob classics like The Godfather in setting its tales in America with the fictional cities Misplaced Haven and Empire Bay as stand-ins for Chicago and New York Metropolis. It is a promising begin, however the sport’s smaller scale — its $50 pricetag suggests a extra restricted scope than the $70 and even $80 AAA video games launching nowadays — turns into obvious as the sport progresses.

After a collapse of the mine practically value him his life, Enzo escapes to a close-by winery owned by Don Torrisi, one of many heads of the native mafia households. The Don takes in Enzo, not as a result of he has a compassionate coronary heart, however the want for muscle: males from a rival household have been trespassing on his land, exhibiting a scarcity of respect.

Enzo begins off as one of many employed palms on the winery however falls deeper into the felony underworld because the Don provides him increasingly more essential duties. Every chapter performs out a sure essential occasion over the course of 4 years as Enzo turns into a part of the Torrisi household. There’s even an initiation ceremony into the household that’s just like the one depicted in different mafia movies and exhibits like The Sopranos.

The Previous Nation is meant to be considerably correct to the time interval, however not so sensible that it drags down the enjoyable. In each chapter, Enzo has to finish some duties that often contain a little bit of driving or using a horse someplace, a stealth sequence, some form of firefight, and a really dramatic knife combat that turns into formulaic. In the end, the sport feels simply so restrictive in its reliance on scripted story beats that abandon the freeform nature of earlier Mafia video games.

Extra scripted than The Godfather Trilogy

One in all my greatest gripes about Mafia: The Previous Nation is how scripted it’s. There’s simply no semblance of freedom inside the sport, dictating particular experiences with the phantasm of likelihood and randomness.

For instance, over the course of the sport, Enzo has to compete in two races: one with a horse and the opposite in a automobile. In each circumstances, I screwed up early on within the competitors and lagged far behind, however I progressed in opposition to the opposite racers with some sharp turns and not-so-legal techniques like bumping my horse into different riders. Factor is, as soon as I handed one other racer, it appeared like the sport went forward and stopped having that racer attempt, so I did not actually need a lot motive to test my tail to see if the man I handed up was going to catch as much as me as a result of they appeared to only cease bothering.

The identical goes for the enemies in shootouts. They get behind some cowl, and a few will, for no matter motive, simply stroll proper to you whereas capturing. There isn’t a sense of urgency or concern once they get shot; they’re simply scripted to maneuver ahead. It is simply fixed via missions, the place when you attain a sure level, the sequence modifications on a dime with no trace of a pure transition from enjoying stealthy to having a firefight. 

The place this was actually baffling was within the areas of San Celeste the place the townspeople gathered. Should you’re excited about doing a little typical GTA-like mayhem, effectively, you may neglect about it. In these areas, you may’t pull a gun, which is ok, however on the outskirts of those areas, you may. There’s a little bit of a failsafe that you may’t shoot on the folks, though some might react once you pull a gun out and level it at them. You’ll be able to, nevertheless, throw a grenade, and the grenade would not do a rattling factor. No accidents, nobody operating round, no response, nothing. The townspeople simply persist with their script, and that is it. 

It is only a disgrace how closed off this sport feels. You’ve gotten all of the instruments to actually have some enjoyable and have interaction with the fantasy of being a felony in a virtually lawless land, and the builders did just about every little thing doable to be sure you do not go off-script.

Whacked by the body fee

The presentation for The Previous Nation has its share of points for me. To begin, I used to be supplied with a PC code, which is not my most well-liked platform to sport on, and for the precise challenge I got here throughout.

My desktop is not high of the road with its GeForce RTX 3060 and Ryzen 5 3600, nevertheless it handles the latest video games wonderful sufficient, and for no matter motive, I used to be getting fixed slowdown going out and in of sequences. After I first booted up the sport, it routinely set my graphics settings between mid and excessive, which is typical for many video games, and I handled laggy transitions from an motion sequence right into a cutscene and vice versa. The Previous Nation does require a good quantity of energy, however I by no means had my PC chug alongside this a lot for a brand new sport, which makes me hope that this will likely be mounted in a day-one optimization patch.

One other challenge within the presentation was the sound enhancing. The voice actors did an incredible job in bringing their characters to life. Specifically, Don Torrisi, performed by Jonny Santiago, was only a thrill. As quickly as Torrisi was launched, I already felt that charisma that somebody who runs a criminal offense household would have, and when he will get pissed, you may really feel it in your bones.

Nevertheless, in between some wonderful voice performing, there have been some noticeable moments after I might inform that the sound enhancing did not give that pure spacing you’d anticipate when two persons are speaking. There have been additionally moments when you can hear that possibly they did not use the perfect take of the road studying.

The graphics are, for a scarcity of a greater phrase, wonderful. The character fashions have been detailed, however to not an distinctive diploma. The identical may very well be mentioned for the a part of Sicily the sport takes place. I simply did not see that one spot that had me eager to cease every little thing and check out the land round, which is a disgrace given the shift from American cities to the sprawling Italian countryside.

One other vivid spot was the rating. It was full of completely different items that felt genuine for the time interval — symphonic strings and different classical Italian fare — but additionally dramatic and actually added to these tense moments.

He pulls a knife, you pull a knife, that is the San Celeste approach

Fight in Mafia, for essentially the most half, is pretty normal for a third-person open-world motion sport that takes place within the early 1900s. It is a number of capturing with revolvers, shotguns and rifles, with them having completely different stopping energy, ammo capability and accuracy. What’s distinctive on this sport is the knives.

The array of blades obtainable to the participant is sort of in depth, extra so than the weapons, they usually play a giant half within the sport past fight. Throughout the stealth sequences, Enzo makes use of a knife to right away kill enemies as an alternative of mashing a button to choke them out. There’s a group of knives that he can throw to take out enemies from a distance. The blade can lose its sharpness because it’s getting used to open locks on doorways and lockboxes, in addition to killing folks, so there are some knives with elevated sturdiness, which may be reset everytime you decide up a whetstone that enemies will simply occur to have on them.

The place the knife actually comes into play are the one-on-one fights. These are usually duels that shut out a complete fight sequence and, towards the tip of the sport, contain extra outstanding characters. These fights are dramatic however nothing distinctive, satisfying a narrative beat however not thrilling in gameplay.

For these dramatic encounters, Enzo and his enemy have their very own life bar and must slice one another up with slashes, a thrust assault to succeed in farther-away enemies, an influence assault to interrupt via the defenses of a blocking enemy, and a dodge and parry. If you have not figured it out but, that is simply paper-rock-scissors, however , with knives — which is ok if predictable. There aren’t any quicktime occasions throughout the fights, simply occasional breaks the place Enzo and his opponent tussle round some extra earlier than it goes again into duel mode. It is all, as soon as once more, by the script, and whereas they are often fairly dramatic, it is merely not significantly particular. Perhaps there have been a number of knife fights within the early days of the mafia, I do not know, I am not a mafia historian, however this feels prefer it was supposed to offer the fight some aptitude. The sport takes place within the 1900s, so there aren’t any machine weapons, rocket launchers or flamethrowers, and the builders thought that giving these very dramatic sequences might assist add to each the historic realism of the time whereas conserving it thrilling.

If that is the case, that notion is The Previous Nation’s shortcoming. I’ve this lovely panorama that isn’t actually obtainable to discover till you full the sport and unlock Discover mode. As soon as I do some venturing, I discover there’s not a lot to see, and in some circumstances, the structure is senseless, with stairways going as much as simply brick partitions. I meet these fascinating characters who I would prefer to know extra about and could be keen to spend time with, however I can not and can solely see them once they’re allowed throughout missions.

It may very well be that my many years of enjoying open-world video games since GTA III got here out are main me to anticipate a lot extra from an open-world sport. Mafia is just not GTA, and The Previous Nation does maintain to the linear model of the primary two video games, nevertheless it’s simply so limiting. Whereas I wasn’t hoping for an RPG, a bit extra freedom would maintain me from feeling railroaded right into a single story. A minimum of within the first Mafia sport, I can get fined for dashing, whereas on this sport, I can velocity via the countryside and not using a fear.

I’d have preferred to see Mafia: The Previous Nation give me extra to sink my tooth into. This isn’t about size, which is available in at round 12 to fifteen hours to finish, however extra about having some meat on the bone. If it is about giving me a cinematic drama to play earlier than me, then actually give it to me as an alternative of a really typical love story up till the final hour or so. My hopes have been excessive for Mafia: The Previous Nation, and the sport did not fulfill.

Mafia: The Previous Nation comes out Friday on PC, PS5 and Xbox Collection X|S for $50.