Hangar 13·Released Aug 7, 2025·Single player
Mafia: The Old Country is an action-adventure game part of the Mafia series. It is a prequel to the first Mafia game. The game lets players descend into Sicily's criminal underworld during the 1900s.
Mafia continues to feel a tad dated in its design trappings, but there's beauty, efficiency and nuanced performances here that are well worth your time.
In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns, but less dangerous than knives.
The motor carriage noisily trundles down a dirt track in the Sicilian countryside. It’s a beautiful evening or morning. I’ve lost track of which, and I’m too busy thinking to double check whether the pale sun overhead is rising or retreating. How strange it is…
Mafia: The Old Country doesn't have enough gameplay ideas to carry its relatively short running time. While the fundamentals here are fine, an overemphasis on insta-fail stealth sequences and floaty shootouts makes for a forgettable campaign, even if it takes place within a stunningly detailed world. The performances are extraordinary but the story itself is predictable, leaving you with a phenomenally acted crime tale that you may admire in the moment but will struggle to remember once the credits roll.
The latest Mafia game aims to contextualize organized crime in Italy's economic history
Mafia: The Old Country uses its stunning setting to tell a familiar story about loyalty and family that’s propped up by its cast of characters.
For all the great prequels out there, Mafia: The Old Country is proof that going backwards isn’t always an interesting way forward.
Mafia: The Old Country is a conventional but effective return to the linear and tightly story-driven format of the original Mafia and Mafia II, and it boasts a wonderful eye and ear for detail.
