To be honest, I was quite surprised to see that many reviewers and players are calling Mafia: The Old Country the best Mafia game in the series. In my eyes, this is by far the worst Mafia game ever made. Yes, even significantly worse than Mafia III. I would hardly even call it a game—more like a walking simulator, an interactive anime, or something similar. Even Telltale games, in my opinion, feel more like actual games than Mafia: The Old Country.
A boring introduction and endless walking through the Sicilian underworld
The game takes us to the brutal Sicilian underworld of the 1900s, where the protagonist, Enzo Favara, struggles to survive and prove his worth to Bernardo Torris. After a harsh life in the mines, Enzo is ready for anything to become a full member of the Torrisi Mafia family. But being part of the family requires sacrifices—are you ready for that, Enzo?
Enzo’s story is set in an era where knife skills were deadly advantages, the favourite weapon of the Sicilian Mafia was a shotgun called Lupara, mafia wars could last decades, and mobsters patrolled on foot, horseback, or in cars from the late 19th and very early 20th centuries. On paper, it all sounds exciting, but in reality, it’s painfully boring, especially since there are not many interesting battles to engage in throughout the game.
The introduction alone is excessively long and incredibly dull. You simply walk or ride behind someone from point A to point B to trigger another cutscene. The story doesn’t draw you in, it doesn’t engage you, and it barely provokes any emotion besides yawning.
Luckily, about halfway through the game—around five hours in—you finally get the chance to shoot a few weapons alongside walking, riding, and driving, giving the otherwise monotonous gameplay a hint of action and excitement. The story also improves slightly, but really only slightly. Even the ending is predictable from the opening cutscenes, and after meeting the mafia boss’s daughter Isabella, you already know how everything will unfold. No surprises here—just the usual storyline, this time featuring a volcano from the opening scenes.
With all this following people around and riding behind them, I kept wishing for the autofollow feature from Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Was it really that hard to add here? Or was it intentionally left out to give the illusion of a “non-linear” game where you could do something else in this supposedly open world? Like what? Collect meaningless trinkets? Because there’s nothing else to do in this painfully empty world.
Outside the story, you can’t even fight anyone or engage in battles in this so-called open world. You can walk, ride, or travel into other mafia territories. While there might have been many people during the story missions, those areas are completely empty outside the main story.
In short, if you reach the end of the game and want to collect missing trophies or achievements, you have to replay chapters from the story, which means more long walks, rides, or driving, and countless cutscenes until you reach a combat section. Fortunately, you can let yourself die before a checkpoint to start the fight over. But if the enemies don’t have the right weapons lying around, and the weapons you have aren’t enough, you have to restart the whole chapter and swap to new weapons.
Why is no one complaining about the empty world and NPC behavior?
Speaking of the empty world of Mafia: The Old Country, I’ve repeatedly seen complaints over the last year about games being “sooooo bad” because the world is empty and NPCs don’t react to your actions. Where are those complainers now? Why is everyone calling this the best Mafia game ever? In previous Mafia games, NPCs did react when you eliminated someone.
I can’t even remember the last time I saw such a lifeless and empty world in a video game like in Mafia: The Old Country. Outside the story, there are no people, no animals, not even birds or butterflies. It feels like a desert. At best, a single car might occasionally pass by—and you can shoot it backward, leaving the unfortunate driver spinning helplessly like a reverse turtle.
Even during the story, NPCs don’t react to your actions at all. You can stealthily kill enemies in front of others without anyone noticing. In one scene, I killed an enemy in front of a group having a conversation and threw the corpse into their midst. Did it bother them? Of course not—a corpse in Sicily is apparently just another everyday occurrence that doesn’t interrupt socializing for a second.
So much for the “best Mafia game.” Apparently, an empty world and indifferent NPCs bother no one. Players and reviewers can be such hypocrites sometimes.
Visually breathtaking? Where?
Many also praise the game’s stunning graphics and breathtaking world, which I just don’t understand. What’s so breathtaking here? First time playing video games? Or do you usually only play some indie pixel junk? Compared to AAA titles like Detroit: Become Human and Red Dead Redemption II, it’s clearly below par. The graphics are completely average. Some characters even looked downright ugly to me. And I couldn’t care less about the empty, lifeless environment—if I want beautiful scenery, I’ll watch National Geographic or go outside.
Loading times—a continuing problem
Oh, and the game has absurdly long loading times—around 15 to 50 seconds. Seriously? In a linear game, between cutscenes? On next-gen consoles? I can’t imagine how long it would take on previous-gen consoles. Optimizing your game must be impossible. These long loading times alone say enough about the game.
Combat
As I mentioned earlier, the game occasionally gives you a chance to engage in knife fights, usually once per chapter. These are clunky and boring, mostly solved by spamming one or two buttons and add nothing meaningful to the game. During combat, you sometimes have to spam another button to gain the upper hand. Why? After the second knife fight, I turned it off in the menu. There are different knives divided into groups granting various bonuses, some of which must be sharpened more often than others.
There are also a few firearms available during action segments—probably six to eight total. If you prefer stealth, strangling, or stabbing with a knife, there are even fewer options to use firearms.
While these action segments are a welcome change from endless cutscenes and walking, they don’t save the game. They provide no tension, and you can’t expect any strategy from your enemies.
Buy or skip?
The story is around 10–12 hours. That was my playtime, though it might be shorter if you move directly from point A to B, occasionally skipping sections.
Do I recommend buying the game? No. Although the game only costs 50 euros this time, I still wouldn’t recommend it even at that price. If you’re a die-hard fan of the Mafia series, wait until Mafia: The Old Country drops to the price of a movie ticket, or just watch the story on YouTube, since there really isn’t much there besides the story anyway.
