2025 Preview: Mafia the Old Country looks like a welcome return to the series’ roots

With Mafia’s setting change to 1900s Sicily, Hangar 13 is making us an offer we can’t refuse

Words by

Chris Scullion

27th Dec 2024 / 2:00 pm

Mafia is one of those series that arguably lost its way a little over time. While the first game was critically acclaimed (on PC, at least) and its sequel did even better, it’s probably fair to say that Mafia 3 dropped the ball a bit.

While it did manage to pull off one thing the series has always been renowned for – its accurate depiction of an era and location rarely visited in video games, in this case New Orleans in the late 1960s – its looser narrative and heavier reliance on open-world exploration made it feel more like a Mafia game done in the Ubisoft style.

The way it split the map world into ten districts and made the player work their way through each one, taking on repetitive missions until each district was cleared, was a far cry from the tight narrative Mafia 2 enjoyed.

It could also be argued that the setting was a little too different for the expectations (perhaps unfairly) generated by the title, and that while we loved playing a game that explored the complex issues surrounding that particular time and place, the word ‘Mafia’ inescapably evokes images of The Godfather movies and that’s a vibe the third game made no attempt to match.

Following the reveal of the first proper story trailer at The Game Awards recently, it’s strikingly clear that Mafia: The Old Country will at least address the latter issue by setting the game in a heartland that will feel right at home (literally) to those who prefer the more conventional Italian mob imagery evoked by the Mafia name.

It’s a deliberate move, too: in a statement following the original teaser trailer’s release, Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes said The Old Country would have “that classic mob movie feeling,” making it clear that the series is leaning back to more familiar tropes.

The specific mob movie that seems to be the main influence this time is The Godfather Part II, specifically the flashback scenes showing a young Vito Corleone in his homeland of Sicily.

According to Hangar 13, The Old Country will let players “uncover the origins of organized crime with a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily”, so it’s pretty clear what your required viewing material is if you want to get a feel of the vibe before its release.

The early 1900s Sicily setting is also going to be interesting because it’ll almost certainly make it look and feel very different to the previous games and their city-based settings. It should make for a more suitable environment for a more linear, narrative-based game too, rather than that region-based open world structure that rubbed Mafia 3 players up the wrong way.

Indeed, Baynes has said as much, explaining that the game is “going back to the roots of what fans love about the franchise”, that it will “craft a deep, linear narrative”, and that Hangar 13 will be “delivering it all in a tight, focused package perfect for fans of immersive experiences”.

At the risk of invoking the ultimate mobster cliché, it sounds like the studio is making us an offer we can’t refuse, and as long as this renewed focus on narrative is accompanied by a plot that’s actually engaging and characters we find ourselves caring about, The Old Country could be the return to form the series hasn’t seen since the second game was released a decade and a half ago.