Mafia: The Old Country — Short, brutal and unforgettable

Playing a video game these days can often feel less like an entertaining distraction and more like a second job. Between live-service titles and other games using every trick in the book to keep you artificially engaged, it seems as if everything you install is designed to extract as much of your time as possible. 

Mafia: The Old Country, however, feels like a big-budget exception to that modern design philosophy.

Is it a by-the-numbers cover-shooter that doesn’t reinvent the wheel? Absolutely. But is it also an exciting dive into a cutthroat world brought to life with exceptional craftsmanship.

Set in Sicily during the early 1900s, Mafia: The Old Country tells a familiar rags-to-riches gangland story. 

You play as Enzo Favara, an indentured slave pushed to his breaking point in the dangerous mines of the time, who falls into crime after being given a chance to prove himself by Don Torrisi, a local businessman with several less-than-legal enterprises on the side. 

From there, it’s a predictable tale of honour, love and revelations as Enzo slowly realizes that mob life might not be as glamorous as it seems, leading to a cataclysmic finale.

What makes Mafia: The Old Country stand out is its willingness to take its time. 

The game lets you soak up a beautifully realised slice of Sicily, researched to an absurd degree. Everything from the clothing to the language — we highly recommend enabling the Sicilian audio track — feels authentic, as if you’ve stepped back more than a century to witness the rise and fall of Cosa Nostra.

The story is well paced, bolstered by excellent performances from a seasoned cast and enhanced with cinematic touches that would make it feel right at home on the silver screen. Even during slower moments, like a languid car ride, you’re drawn into the sweeping tale — despite gameplay that often feels merely adequate. 

In an age of homogenised titles chasing the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Fortnite or Genshin Impact, scaling back the action to focus on a handful of combat and stealth mechanics is a bold creative choice that reinforces the game’s narrative focus.

Case in point: settling a feud with a no-holds-barred knife fight. 

These encounters serve as punchy exclamation points to close a chapter, as you pivot between quick jabs of cold steel and frantic dodges to avoid some lethal acupuncture. 

They strike a balance of complexity, excitement, and narrative payoff that keeps you hooked. The same holds true for the game’s shootouts and stealth sections, all contained within a linear structure. That razor-sharp focus delivers a AAA-level experience without padding it with superfluous systems designed to wring every second of engagement out of you.

The concise 10-12-hour runtime ties neatly into this lean-and-mean design, and to its credit, those few hours feel just as impactful as the 50 you might sink into an Assassin’s Creed sandbox. DM

Released on 8 August, Mafia: The Old Country is playable now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series consoles and Windows PC. This review was first published on PFangirl.