Mafia: The Old Country Looks Like It Retains The Series' Biggest Flaw
Open world or not, story is still the focus.
Developer Hanger 13 has finally showed us gameplay for the next entry in the beloved Mafia series. And as the first couple of trailers have already revealed, the fourth game in the series appears to be a tense, paranoia-filled descent into the underworld of early twentieth century Italy: one full of memorable characters, performances, and lethal dastardly deeds.
But while the world of Mafia: The Old Country seems to carry forward the series’ greatest strength, its gameplay reveal also suggests that its greatest weakness is along for the ride as well.
Mafia: The Old Country premiered nine minutes of gameplay footage with IGN this week. The clip appeared to combine scenes from a single mission in which protagonist Enzo Favara, seemingly a new initiate in the Torrisi crime family, infiltrates the villa of a powerful rival.
From a production standpoint, Mafia: The Old Country is an ambitious period piece that nails the melodrama of its Hollywood inspirations. The cutscenes are moody, sparse with dialogue and lighting in equal measure. The leaders of the Torrisi family are very clearly men of few words. When they do choose to speak, there’s a gravitas to their demands that both inspires and terrifies. Our protagonist Enzo, despite his measured responses, betrays his eagerness to prove himself with his eyes. It’s a subtle bit of acting that shows how Hanger 13 is evolving the series’ story-focused formula. It’s pretty gripping stuff.
The other 80 percent of this reveal focuses on familiar pillars that make up this crime game. Enzo is introduced to the family’s weapons specialist and picks his weapons for the job (a scene that feels like it’s pulled straight from the first two games). This is followed by a lengthy drive through the scenic countryside of the town’s village. There’s a stark difference between traversing the bustling urban sprawls of the last three games and The Old Country’s barren dirt paths. There’s something haunted about the quiet of this village at dusk, and how that brushes against the hum of Enzo’s rickety T-model. There’s a prompt to skip this drive, the first sign of this entry abandoning the series’ open-world roots. But I can’t imagine wanting to move past these vibes.
When you finally arrive in the dead of night, Enzo is told by a trio of Torrisi associates to take the quiet approach. As expected, Enzo sneaks his way into the villa, staying out of sight and taking out unsuspecting guards with his pocket knife. It’s here that I was left a little underwhelmed. The stealth looks standard. There is one animation for taking out guards, but there seems to be little else to sneaking around than pattern recognition and the occasional thrown object to distract enemies. From what I could see, there was no sign of hiding in the shadows and it seems to have little opportunity for improvisation. Aside from the inclusion of a throwing knife, it was missing that extra twist that would set it apart from wave and wave of other action games that include stealth sections.
This disappointment followed through to the mission’s more action-packed shootout section. Save for a few cool-looking movement animations while reloading, gunplay looked unchanged from what fans have come to expect from the series since 2010’s Mafia 2. The enemy AI seemed to slowly advance, inaccurately firing their guns at Enzo as the player ran around in the open just feet in front of them.
Mafia: The Old Country seems to nail the melodrama of its Hollywood inspirations.
None of my nitpicks seem egregiously bad. In fact, it’s pretty par for the course when it comes to Mafia. The three games before The Old Country aren’t known for having deep mechanics. The driving is usually serviceable, as is the combat. Even with all of my gripes, what was shown of the upcoming game’s mission looked decent enough to not turn me off from the game entirely.
But after Hanger 13 announced earlier this year that The Old Country would be ditching an explorable open world, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that the action looked as basic as it did. With the team’s entire focus on creating a linear narrative (a welcome bucking of a tired industry trend), I hoped the resources that would typically go into creating a world players could explore would be used to make the action as interesting as it could be.
Of course, these are early impressions from nine minutes of gameplay. The full experience may reveal depth that the developer is keeping tight-lipped until it’s in the hands of reviewers. It’s also worth considering that Mafia: The Old Country will be a game sold for just $50. As someone without an intimate knowledge of what it takes to make a video game in today’s era, adding more gameplay depth may have required additional budget and time not available to the studio during production. Clearly, Hanger 13 didn’t skimp when it came it comes to other aspects of the experience, such as performance capture and art assets.
But still, as a longtime Mafia player, I was hoping this would be the series' breakout moment when it comes to gameplay. After two very basic titles, followed by a fun yet repetitive third entry, I was sure this would be the one that would get the action just right. Instead, Mafia: The Old Country looks like it won’t break the mold of its nearly 25-year legacy.
