Mafia The Old Country: GAF Impressions Thread

Humdinger

Humdinger

Gold Member
This is a thread to share impressions of Mafia: The Old Country. It releases Friday August 8, 2025.

There is a Review thread elsewhere, containing review scores and reactions. I thought we needed a separate thread for those of us playing the game to share impressions. You can always use the review thread for that if you like, but I thought it would be cleaner to start from scratch with a new thread.



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Metacritic is running at 76, based on 56 reviews.

Mafia: The Old Country Reviews

Uncover the origins of organized crime in Mafia: The Old Country, a gritty mob story set in the brutal underworld of 1900s Sicily. Fight to survive in this dangerous and unforgiving era, with action brought to life by the authentic realism and rich storytelling that the critically acclaimed...
www.metacritic.com www.metacritic.com


PS5 Pro breakdown, courtesy of Arsic:

Arsic said:
If OP wants, here's the ps5 pro break down people will care about:

Quality mode
Performance mode
Ability to turn v sync on and off

On pro if you turn off v sync on quality mode with a VRR TV then you'll be at 60 fps 99% of the time. Small hiccups very rarely. The issue? Some kind of bug seems to exist in certain lighting that causes flickering on screen.

If you turn off on your console VRR, or you turn v sync on, then unfortunately the game is a choppy looking 30FPS and not a smooth 30. Likely a frame pacing issue.

Performance mode seems flawless, but you sacrifice shadows it seems. They get a dithering effect that's pretty noticeable.

No matter which mode you pick though the game is absolutely stunning.

I am going the screen flickering route for now, since it only happened in one area so far. If it persists I'll go performance mode until a fix occurs.

Definitely worth picking up for PS5 pro.
Click to expand...
 
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Chuck Berry said:
Guess this will be the OT. Already preloaded on the Pro, but won't be playing until tomorrow AM.
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Same here. Mine will unlock 11pm, but that's too late for me. I'll play tomorrow and post some early impressions. I wonder if there will be a Day 1 patch? Guess we'll find out.
 
Humdinger said:
Same here. Mine will unlock 11pm, but that's too late for me. I'll play tomorrow and post some early impressions. I wonder if there will be a Day 1 patch? Guess we'll find out.
Click to expand...

Someone on Era said that today the PS5 version got it's third day one patch lol

Could be bullshit. Who knows. I haven't seen anything about day one patches personally, but then again that would explain the lack of console reviews.
 
I have played the game around an hour and half. I have to say that so far I am a bit underwhelmed

It feels like I am playing a walking simulator, the gameplay is extremely basic and linear. I hope this changes a bit later on but yeah, it feels more like an interactive movie so far
 
Gonzito said:
I have played the game around an hour and half. I have to say that so far I am a bit underwhelmed

It feels like I am playing a walking simulator, the gameplay is extremely basic and linear. I hope this changes a bit later on but yeah, it feels more like an interactive movie so far
Click to expand...

First few hours are supposed to be a slow burn doing menial shit. It's called context and exposition and character development papi.
 
So, played a bit of the intro. Graphics maxed out on pc look fine, nothing really impressive in the first scene/tutorial in the mines. Some typical UE stutters, but it runs fine. HDR is nice.

The sicilian audio is a nice touch (especially so since I can speak it!). Hopefully the action starts soon enough.
 
Finally got a chance to play it for a wee bit (1 chapter) and I am really enjoying it. The pace, atmosphere, acting, audio, and graphics all blend well. HDR is beautiful in this game, makes everything look so good. It also has Ultrawide (32:9 for me) except in cutscenes, but no doubt a mod will help that.

Also had a bug very early on. I was told to loot a body then nothing happened after. After a reload of the checkpoint, a second instruction appeared telling me to use the item.

The frame rate seems to have weird spikes, especially in cutscenes, according to Rivatuna, but actually playing the game it felt great. With DLSS and frame gen 2X, the early cutscenes would go from about 110 to 47 fps and everything in-between. I ended up just settling for DLSS quality and everything turned down 1 notch from Epic and has been smooth. I'm wondering if maybe Rivatuna is having issues reading it correctly, as during the shader compilation, my CPU normally hits the 80s, but for this was seemingly a rock solid 60C. I'll try the new Steam performance overlay next time.


TEW5LN2kcDlbQ7kR.jpg
 
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I played the prolonge and chapter 1. The graphics are blowing me away. Reminds me some of Indiana Jones graphically. The weird cut scene frame pace thing happened to me as well. I switched the option of showing cut scenes at 30fps (default) to unlimited and that seemed to fix it.

The 1 on 1 knife fighting is pretty basic, at least at the start. I do think it'll add more and more mechanics. The first fight like that is largely just the tutorial for it.

I'm playing on ultra, dlss, frame gen. I'm getting 125-145 frames at all times with my 4090.
 
2 hours in. Game is really good so far, much better than the recent gameplay trailers. Game looks phenomenal on PC, really like the time period and the characters are already great. Good cutscenes, good VA and finally a linear story driven game. I dont mind the "on rail" sections or the cutscenes. Its that type of game and i appreciate it

Also the game has some neat attention to detail that i didnt expected from a 50 dollar AA title
 
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Sigh.

It has all the usual tripple A slop mechanics on deck

- crappy stealth sections with dopy AI and enemies staring at walls
- quick time event bonanza hand to hand combat
- x-ray vision to make the stealth even easier
- ton of invisible walls, very little open exploration
- painfully easy
 
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Nocty said:
Sigh.

It has all the usual tripple A slop mechanics on deck

- crappy stealth sections with dopy AI and enemies staring at walls
- quick time event bonanza hand to hand combat
- x-ray vision to make the stealth even easier
- ton of invisible walls, very little open exploration
- painfully easy
Click to expand...

Keep playing, the game opens up.

Dont use Xray if it bothers you. And in options you can remove the quick time events
 
Nocty said:
Sigh.

It has all the usual tripple A slop mechanics on deck

- crappy stealth sections with dopy AI and enemies staring at walls
- quick time event bonanza hand to hand combat
- x-ray vision to make the stealth even easier
- ton of invisible walls, very little open exploration
- painfully easy
Click to expand...
Yep. It's shit :messenger_tears_of_joy:

To even think this is anywhere near the wizardy of the original illusion softworks team is downright insulting..

Mafia
Hidden and Dangerous 1/2
Vietcong..

For this game to be getting semi high praise just says it all 🤷‍♂️
 
Playing on PS5 Pro. With VSync enabled. TV shows im getting framerates between 70-84 in quality mode. It doesn't feel that way high tho . My TV is capable of 2000 nits so I had to up paperwhite to 200 otherwise the picture is too dim. After a lackluster first 30 minutes the game immediately made me care about the introduced characters. I really like it. Being in Italy for vacation 3 weeks ago certainly helps.
 
Wow just started it on PS5 Pro and I'm already loving the visuals and atmosphere and overall polish in the UI. Oh and the soundtrack! And sound design. Looks and sounds premium.
 
PicoLordens said:
Playing on PS5 Pro. With VSync enabled. TV shows im getting framerates between 70-84 in quality mode. It doesn't feel that way high tho . My TV is capable of 2000 nits so I had to up paperwhite to 200 otherwise the picture is too dim. After a lackluster first 30 minutes the game immediately made me care about the introduced characters. I really like it. Being in Italy for vacation 3 weeks ago certainly helps.
Click to expand...
Maybe its doubled from 35-42 (low frame compensation), I briefly played it and it feel around 40 for me in quality mode with vsync
 
I played through the Prologue, slowly. It took me about an hour. I like it so far. I'm being patient and letting myself be immersed in the story.

Enzo is a sympathetic character. I don't know if he's a likeable character yet, but at least he's sympathetic, which is half the battle. I was trying to put myself in his shoes (or rather, his lack of shoes) in that first section. What a tough start in life.

I tried the Sicilian voices, but I abandoned them. I liked the authenticity, but the subtitles appeared and disappeared too quickly for me. I was missing things being said. I am accustomed to Yakuza brevity, but these Sicilian guys talk a lot. I didn't want to just be staring at subtitles and missing the visual presentation. So I switched back to English voice. It sounds pretty good to me.

People say the game starts slow, but I didn't find it so. I thought the prologue had plenty of interesting plot points and action. Maybe it slows down in Chapter 1, I don't know. Or maybe hearing that it was a "slow burn" allowed me to adjust my expectations.
 
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Chuck Berry said:
First few hours are supposed to be a slow burn doing menial shit. It's called context and exposition and character development papi.
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Exactly, and all mafia games were like this. shit Half-life 1 and 2 were like this. What is with people expecting being thrown right in to the action from the start? Is it generational gen z can't focus due to tic-tok brain, or just smart phones have made everyone inpatient? (probably a bit of both, although I know my wife is the same way and she is a older millennial, can't read instruction manuals and expects things to happen faster than they do in films etc..)
 
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Shadowstar39 said:
Exactly, and all mafia games were like this. shit Half-life 1 and 2 were like this. What is with people expecting being thrown right in to the action from the start? Is it generational gen z can't focus due to tic-tok brain, or just smart phones have made everyone inpatient? (probably a bit of both, although I know my wife is the same way and she is a older millennial, can't read instruction manuals and expects things to happen faster than they do in films etc..)
Click to expand...

First of all I dont use tik-tok. Second, the game from a gameplay perspective starts very, very slow, you basically just follow characters walking and vault obstacles. Previous Mafia games didn't feel as slow although Mafia 3 took some time as well to really start. That being said, at around the 2 hours mark, the game all of a sudden picks up and start being much more interesting and have more action and interesting gameplay too

Some games have objectively a slow start and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out and it doesn't mean I have a faulty brain
 
I watched some streaming of it last night. Very derivative gameplay. Bog standard "establishing shot, shoulder, shoulder" cinematography during cutscenes. Worst aspect was the constant frame drops, and this despite the overall clean/solid look the graphics have. UE5 is a detriment to every game that uses it.
 
Chuck Berry said:
Wow, some Italian you are :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Click to expand...

Chill man. There could be new episodes of Jersey Shore.


I don't get people calling it easy. For one, I don't know if I died much at all in any of the Mafia games. Don't think so. Plus at the start of this game you'd be bringing a knife to a 12 person gun fight.
 
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