Mafia: The Old Country is the Sicilian mafia’s origin story, a Hollywood style epic blending emotional storytelling with painstaking attention to detail. Hangar 13 is promising an experience to be truly immersed in, an authentic window into the shadowy secrecy of old-time crime syndicates and their pre-eminent wrestling for dominance. The recent 9-minute gameplay reveal provides guarded optimism, but perhaps the 15 things discussed in this feature will convince you that joining the family will be worthwhile.
It’s a linear story game
Within Mafia: The Old Country, developer Hangar 13 wants every player to feel as if they’re starring in their very own mob movie. To achieve this, the fourth mainline entry in the long-running organised crime action-adventure series features tightly paced missions and a plethora of sparsely lit, authentically acted cutscenes, building the foundation upon which a carefully crafted narrative rests. Story progression, then, is linear, moving the series away from Mafia III’s openness, back to an experience similar in delivery to Mafia’s I and II.
There’s cutscenes aplenty
Cementing The Old Country’s rich storytelling and authentic realism Hangar 13 believes the Mafia series is renowned for will be extensive between-play cutscenes. We’re not expecting anywhere near the scale of Metal Gear Solid 4’s marathon cinematics, but it’s clear Mafia’s California based studio are placing huge emphasis on story-padding acting in The Old Country. For what it’s worth, the cutscene opening the recent 9-minute gameplay trailer looks supremely well-crafted, if a little generic but its noir-esque lighting, purposeful dialogue, and nuanced facial expressions exude tension.
It’s not open world
Hangar 13’s determination to deliver a tightly-woven narrative is the driving force behind not presenting Mafia: The Old Country’s stunning Sicilian backdrop as open world. This could prove a shrewd decision if the upcoming prequel’s promising story explores the emotional melodrama of its Hollywood inspiration to the fullest. However, the rustic beauty of early-1900s Sicily is undeniably one of the game’s key selling points too, a stark contrast to the bustling American cities of Mafia’s prior entries.
Authenticity is The Old Country’s heart
The desire for an authentic as possible Sicilian crime drama is Mafia: The Old Country’s beating heart; the result, the culmination of a painstaking development process. Hangar 13’s research has been immense: studying a library of Sicilian mafioso crime novels to get under the skin of early 1900s Sicilian crime families, learning their traditions and culture, firing their weapons, driving their cars. Immersing themselves in the subject matter – including first-hand trips to Sicily – has proven crucial for Hangar 13 when creating The Old Country’s setting, its vistas, its characters within, and its story. Audio is a key thread in the tapestry too, with period-correct music and localised voice actors boosting authenticity further.
Enzo Favara is the game’s lead
And how better to experience Sicily’s gritty underbelly than through the eyes of Enzo Favara, an eager, to the point of naive, fresh initiate to the Torrisi crime syndicate. He’s the quintessential antihero, his murderous rampages in pursuit of honor the result of a tragic childhood whereby he forcibly worked in sulphur mines. His core beliefs are built on him being disposable; if he died in the mines, no doubt another child would have taken his place. Surviving to adulthood, Enzo pursues opportunities to stay alive, and perhaps to make something of his life, with a rise through the ranks of the Torrisi mafia offering his best chance.
Other characters confirmed
Other characters have been confirmed, including Enzo’s patriarchal mentor Don Bernado Torrisi, head of the Torrisi family who symbolically adopts Enzo. His daughter Isabella Torrisi struggles to navigate the mafia’s dominance. Her intelligence and autonomous nature ensures she won’t be one-dimensional. Elsewhere, Cesare Massaro is Enzo’s closest confidant and Don Spadaro is the head of a rival family.
Gameplay overview
Mafia: The Old Country supplants the gameplay we’ve seen before into old-timey Sicily, albeit linearly delivered as already discussed. As such, players can expect action-heavy missions which meld stealth-based takedowns and open plan gunfights. Also as seen in gameplay, getting across Sicily’s dust-strewn landscapes will be in period-correct, if potentially too rapid, vehicles or via horseback.
Stealth in detail
Now, stealth aficionados might’ve come away from the gameplay a tad disappointed by Enzo’s subterfuge skillset. The reality, from what’s been shared so far, is stealth in Mafia: The Old Country isn’t presenting anything novel. There are shadows to hide inside, walls to creep behind, guards patrolling in repeated patterns, and objects to throw as distraction such as the coins in Enzo’s pocket or possibly the glass bottles seen atop the wall of a fountain. Silent takedowns come via a quick stab in the back or a well-placed knife throw. There isn’t any distinction between guard-killing animations in the gameplay, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be in the finished product.
Hand-to-hand combat
Without consistent access to guns, in 1900s Sicily disputes were settled the old fashioned way: with knives. Being a part of Sicilian culture, knives, and knife fights, will be an integral part of Mafia: The Old Country; viscous, up-close, and personal. Hand-to-hand combat here is life and death, with survival coming down to whoever has the strongest will to live. Knife use in The Old Country is also emblematic of a scarcity of resources. It’s likely Enzo will come to rely on his knife skills for survival more than any other form of weaponry.
Shootouts
Once cover is blown, a guns blazing approach can be taken in The Old Country, and owing to some awesome firepower shootouts are high intensity, one-shot-kill fights. Taking cover, shooting over countertops, popping out of cover, rinse, repeat, there’s an exhilaration here at odds with the serene countryside. Whilst mechanical depth isn’t necessarily something the Mafia series is renowned for, Hanger 13 do seem to have placed decent focus on making gun fights in The Old Country impactful.
When all else fails, there’s grenades
Or, more specifically, fuse bombs with timed detonation that were more commonly used during the early 1900s era. In Mafia: The Old Country, they function as grenades; when Enzo chucks one at a couple of guards in the 9-minute gameplay video they recoil at the sight of what they term as a grenade. So, despite Enzo likely wielding a primitive form of the incendiary, ostensibly he’ll be equipped with grenades.
All firepower is period-correct
Owing to Hangar 13’s pursuit of authenticity, it should go without saying that all the guns featured in Enzo’s armoury are period-correct. Broadly speaking, the firearms used in this era are less forgiving than their modern counterparts, and this is reflected in the aforementioned necessity for cover-based shooting. The list of handguns, rifles, and shotguns set to feature are iconic to the Sicilian mafia too, headlined of course by the double-barrel sawn-off shotgun – the Lupara.
Traversal in detail
Given the early 1900s setting, horses, and horse-drawn carriages, are set to be the most common way Enzo gets about. However, whilst not as commonplace at the time, Enzo will be able to get behind the wheel of some primitive wheelery. Now, in developing The Old Country’s car physics, a team from Hangar 13 not only visited a vintage car collection in the Czech Republic, but drove them with microphones attached, capturing not only the sounds of engines and transmission but creaking metal panels, springs, and so on.
Immersion breaking animations
We’ve alluded to this already, but within the 9-minute gameplay feature we don’t see an awful lot of variation in character animation. Mafia: The Old Country’s official gameplay trailers do showcase more in this regard, but there’s a worry that we’ll be seeing the same death animations repeatedly. Hope to be proven wrong.
Driving can be skipped
Skippable driving isn’t a problem in itself, but the fact it exists – almost from the very moment Enzo gets behind the wheel – implies an acknowledgement by Hangar 13 that driving won’t be especially exciting, car chases aside. Existing in the tranquility of rural Sicily will likely appeal to many gamers though, so this isn’t necessarily a big concern. Linear design, as The Old Country is, suggests there won’t be much unexpected happenstance occurring on Silicy’s dirt roads either, although we might be treated to a few points of interest on-route to a mission.