Mafia: The Old Country
Developer: Hangar 13
Publisher: 2K
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $49.99 USD – Available Here $89.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
Ever since the Mafia series originally released back in 2002 the titles always helped set themselves apart from other crime-based action games by sticking as close as possible to the mob’s ways, be it how the family handled themselves or their historic elements even if they were embellished heavily. Across the many developers that have handled the four game series Hangar 13 has now fully taken the reins after putting out Mafia III back in 2016 and giving fans a taste of the first two games again both a remastering of the second (albeit from another developer) and a remake of the first. Now after a fairly lengthy period between games Hangar 13 has returned five years after those re-releases with Mafia: The Old Country promising a more story-driven focus on a game that has always excelled at storytelling and atmosphere. The question is, were they successful?
Story
Set as a prequel, players take on the role of Enzo Favara, a young man trapped by an unknown debt that keeps him slaving away underneath the cruel rule of the Spadaro family in their dangerous sulphur mines. After nearly earning enough to buy his freedom, a mine collapse kills the only person Enzo could call his friend while destroying his hopes for escape. Driven to rage by the callous treatment of the Spadaro’s Enzo lashes out at one of the main members before going on the run with a stolen horse only to find that he has managed to ride all the way out of the Spadaro territory to that managed by their rivals, the Torrisi family.
Using their fragile truce as a way to force the Spadaro to retreat, the Torrisi family takes Enzo in, first as a stablehand but soon find that this skilled man has far more potential than just shoveling manure and working the fields. Soon Enzo quickly finds himself becoming more and more important to the Torrisi family’s various activities, growing close with its members, and even the Don’s daughter before becoming a “made man” and officially part of the Torrisi Mafioso. Enzo’s roughly twelve hour journey from the mines to being a made man and beyond is about as predictable as they come.
Anyone that has watched any sort of mob movie or any type of experience with the Mafia series itself will already know how things are going to go here. We have the Don Torrisi serving as the powerful and intimidating head of the family with countless contacts capable of expanding his territory, rival Dons pushing the limits even as they send their own members to assault Torrisi’s facilities, a rat or two that need putting down for trying to take advantage of the guards to make a quick buck, and even forbidden love. Everything here is predictable, in fact seeing even half of the Godfather would work, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable, especially with the few nods to other entries in the franchise.
Part of the reason that it is still enjoyable despite being predictable is because of how well the storyline is actually told. Sure, it’s stereotypical, but the voice acting and the characters are outstanding. These characters happen to shine in the short time players spend with them, whether it is the imposing Don Torrisi himself, Luca, the man that first saw just how good Enzo could do for the family and stood by him, or even the booze and woman loving Cesare. All of these characters and the land of Sicily itself that players will travel through help make Mafia: The Old Country‘s story really manage to hit home despite its predictable nature. It must be said though that it is a bit unfortunate that Enzo himself is a bit of a lackluster lead character and the side-collectables that come in the form of notes or newspapers don’t really do much to actually expand the story in any noteworthy way.
Gameplay
It is interesting to note that despite how it may look, Mafia: The Old Country is not an open world game, it is instead a heavily structured shooter where players will almost always find themselves following a linear path. In fact, the few times players feel like they may be able to wander off, a warning to return to the mission area or straight failure will occur, locking players into each sequence whether it revolves around one of the three standard systems that make up the game. These happen to either be simple walk and talk sections, shoot-outs with standard cover-based mechanics, or instant fail stealth sequences with players either teleporting directly to a location, hopping on a horse to ride it there, or driving.
The gunplay in Mafia: The Old Country is handled well-enough with a decent amount of variety in weapons that Enzo can wield ranging from numerous different kinds of pistols, rifles, and shotguns as well as a grenade toss or two. Enzo can have two guns at a time and can pick up ammo either from the arena or loot it from a body if need be. These shootouts tend to boil down to simple cover shooting systems where players pop-out, take down an enemy that is either flanking or sticking their head out of cover, and drop down before taking damage or healing using bandages if they do. Enemy AI when it comes to these shootouts isn’t the best but they do try to at least push their advantage when players stay down too long, even if it usually just ends up with them running right out of cover.
The stealth system is similarly handled predictably with some minor levels of detail should players want to take extra part in it. As players sneak around they can use Enzo’s unexplained “intuition” that shows where enemies are located and he can either toss a coin if he has one or a bottle to distract one that might be looking his way. Players can then either take down a guard either by choking them out with a quick time event or stab them to death with his knife for a quick takedown. The knife oddly has a “sharpness” meter that degrades with each elimination (or time it used to open a lock) and can only be sharpened via a whetstone that can be found on a body or environment. This is meant to encourage players to only use the knife when needed but for the most part it was never really an issue, even with the instant failure system if captured as the stealth system works very simply here with enemy AI often doing a poor job of even seeing the player. In fact, while players can hide bodies in chests, the only time it was needed was in the tutorial.
It is interesting to note that there is a very minor way to customize Enzo’s abilities through a rosary and beads that also serve as collectables but ironically, these systems are barely worth touching. Making Enzo’s foot-steps quieter or having his tossed items make more noise are of little consequence in the stealth system as it is. The initial bead and charm players have will likely serve them well enough and while players can use money obtained from chests, safes, and enemies to purchase additional bead slots, special weapons, and the like, it just never feels needed.
As for the driving and horse riding, players will once again be able to find that, at some points in the game, they can buy better horses or vehicles but throughout the story they are limited to what the story itself provides with very little choice and even here the actual riding and driving mechanics are simple, though players can change the settings to do things like make manual shifting and realistic driving from the era if they feel like it. As for the horses, the only difference is how many times players can spur them on to increase how long they can gallop for making it very basic. It is only during the aforementioned story sequences where the set-pieces take place that actually give weight to these mechanics, like driving a falling apart car into a fog-filled night-time chase or riding after a bandit crew and firing away on horse-back to rescue someone that’s been kidnapped, that makes these moments feel worthwhile even when the mechanics themselves are bog standard.
Perhaps the most unique moments in Mafia: The Old Country’s gameplay happen to be when Enzo whips out his knife and, for one reason or another, his opponent does the same, even if it means dropping a shotgun or giving up a clear advantage, to duel. These knife duals have their own set of mechanics entirely with players being able to perform lunging stabs or combo slashes together all while trying to parry light-strikes from their opponent or ducking out of the way of heavy blows so players can counter on their own. While exciting, these knife fights often felt like they boiled down to flailing at times especially since cleanly struck blows are ignored by the opponent’s health meter and strikes that should be parried slide through no problem. Not that there is much difficulty here either, as many knife fights eventually trigger a cinematic clash and struggle that heals Enzo and hurts the opponent further.
All in all, every mechanic in Mafia: The Old Country is designed to work with its storyline and set-pieces, helping make the story all the more enticing but don’t hold together on their own which is unfortunate. This is especially the case when players do end up free roaming around to look for collectables as it not only showcases how beautiful the world is, but how little there actually is to do in it. When gathering collectables on a map with no waypoint options and has to always be zoomed in a little to see the item locations, it is incredibly lacking especially since there are no enemies in any way or threats outside of crashing your car and having to literally crank it back up.
Audio & Visuals
It can easily be said that Mafia: The Old Country is an incredibly gorgeous looking game. The team at Hangar 13 has presented a wonderful looking version of Sicily here, whether players are driving along a road through the vineyard or riding alongside a flower-filled location, every spot is filled with color and detail. Even the mines that players have to navigate early have a dark level of detail to them. The character models themselves are also handled incredibly well and Enzo goes through plenty of wardrobe changes as the story progresses if players don’t want to dress them up themselves. This level of presentation makes all of the aforementioned story moments and highlights even better looking and more impactful.
The same can be said in regards to the voice work as the game offers an incredibly solid English voice cast for its characters but offers a wide-range of other languages as well, including Sicilian should players want the most authentic sounding experience. This type of thing is essential in a game that is story driven like Mafia: The Old Country and they really nailed it here. The background music is fairly standard and fits the theme and setting of the game but doesn’t really move beyond that.
Overall
By focusing on delivering a story-driven game, Hangar 13 manages to make the most out of Mafia: The Old Country‘s systems to create a highly enjoyable storyline throughout its limited run-time even if it is as predictable of a mob story as players might expect. On their own, the game’s mechanics are simplistic and bog standard but when combined with intense story beats, those elements blend together quite well, just don’t look too far past this gorgeous set period drama or you’ll find it doesn’t have much beyond that.
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