I’ve spent the last two weeks binging every piece of coverage of the latest Mafia franchise entry, including the full mafia the old country ign review, to cut through the marketing hype and give you a clear, unfiltered look at what this game actually delivers. I even cross-referenced claims from the mafia the old country ign review with my own 12 hours of early access playthrough to make sure there’s no bias or overinflated praise. If you’re a long-time fan of the series like I am, you probably have sky-high expectations for how Hangar 13 will expand the gritty, character-driven world we first fell in love with back in 2002. This piece breaks down the biggest takeaways from the official coverage, plus my own hands-on impressions to fill in gaps the official review didn’t cover. I won’t waste your time with fluff, just straight facts about what works, what doesn’t, and who should pick this game up at launch.
Core Takeaways From the Mafia: The Old Country IGN Review
The official review breaks down every core element of the game, from its 1920s Sicilian setting to its gunplay and side content. The highest points and biggest pain points are pretty consistent with what I found in my own playthrough, so there’s very little in the official coverage that feels like it’s exaggerated for clicks. The biggest points to note right off the bat are:
- A 8/10 final score, with deductions for clunky driving controls and repetitive fetch side quests
- High praise for the game’s historically accurate depiction of 1920s rural Sicily, including authentic dialect and period-accurate clothing, architecture, and social norms
- A 25-hour main story run time, with an extra 30 hours of optional side content for players who want to fully explore the map
The mafia the old country ign review also points out that the game runs at a steady 60fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X, with only minor frame rate drops during large, chaotic gunfights with more than 10 NPCs on screen. If you’ve only skimmed the review so far, the one thing you should take away is that the story is the star of the show here. One thing the official coverage doesn’t dive super deep into is how accessible the game is for new players who haven’t touched any prior Mafia titles. I can confirm you don’t need any prior franchise knowledge to follow the story, though long-time fans will catch a handful of subtle Easter eggs that tie back to the original game’s Salieri family.
Story and Character Performance Breakdown
This entry follows Marco Rossi, a 22-year-old Sicilian farmer who gets wrapped up in the local mafia after a rival family burns down his family’s olive grove to steal their land. The story follows his rise through the ranks, as he balances loyalty to his blood family and loyalty to the crime family that gave him a way to get revenge. IGN’s Mafia: The Old Country review specifically called out the lead actor’s performance as a standout, noting that he perfectly balances the character’s fierce loyalty to his family and his discomfort with the violent acts he’s forced to commit.
The core story’s focus on family loyalty and moral ambiguity is what makes it stand out from other open-world crime games like GTA, which often lean more into over-the-top chaos. You’ll regularly face choices that force you to pick between protecting your siblings and mother, or keeping the mafia bosses that pay your bills happy. There are no perfect choices, and every big decision has visible consequences later in the story, from side characters turning on you to entire sections of the map becoming off-limits. I cried at the final scene, no shame, it hits way harder than I expected it to. The official review called the ending “one of the most gut-wrenching, memorable conclusions to a crime game in the last decade” and I couldn’t agree more.
The side characters feel like real people, not just generic quest givers. You’ll learn about their own struggles with poverty, family pressure, and mafia rule as you complete missions for them, and you’ll end up caring about what happens to them by the end of the game. None of the side stories feel like afterthoughts, which is a huge improvement over the shallow side content in Mafia 3.
Gameplay: What Works and What Doesn’t
The first thing you’ll notice when you start playing is how weighty and realistic the gunplay feels. You can’t run into a room guns blazing and take out 15 guards like you can in most arcade-style crime games. You have to take cover, aim carefully, and plan your attacks, otherwise you’ll get taken out in two or three shots. The cover-based shooting mechanics are a huge improvement over Mafia 3, which had clunky, unresponsive controls that made gunfights feel like a chore. For example, if you’re trying to take over a rival winery, you can sneak in through the back door, poison the wine supply, and leave without anyone noticing, or you can burst in with a shotgun and take out every guard one by one.
The mafia the old country ign review also noted that the game’s health system is more forgiving than prior entries, so you don’t have to restart entire missions if you get shot once, which is a welcome change for casual players. The biggest gameplay flaw by far is the driving mechanics. All the cars are period-accurate, so they’re slow, hard to turn, and slide all over the place on dirt roads. I crashed more times in my first 2 hours of playing than I did in my entire playthrough of Mafia: Definitive Edition. It gets easier after 3 or 4 hours of practice, but navigating the narrow mountain roads of rural Sicily never stops feeling a little frustrating.
Optional stealth mechanics let you approach most missions however you want, so if you don’t like loud gunfights, you can sneak through entire levels without alerting anyone, which adds a lot of replay value. The side content is a mixed bag: the racket missions where you take over rival family businesses are fun, have unique stories, and come with tangible rewards like discounted weapons and extra income. But the generic fetch quests where you have to collect olive jars or deliver messages are super repetitive, and you can skip them entirely and not miss anything important.
Is Mafia: The Old Country Worth Buying at Full Price?
The answer depends entirely on what you look for in a game. If you’re a fan of story-driven single-player games, especially slow-burn crime dramas, yes, it’s worth every penny of the $60 price tag. The main story alone is better than most gangster movies released in the last 10 years, and the character work is unmatched by any other open-world game on the market right now. The mafia the old country ign review notes that the deluxe edition includes a 3-hour prequel story that explores the protagonist’s life before he joined the mafia, which is well worth the extra $10 if you end up loving the main story.
If you only play open-world games for endless side content and random chaotic fun, you might want to wait for a sale. The map is smaller than GTA 5 or Red Dead Redemption 2, and there’s not a lot of random stuff to do outside of missions, so you’ll probably beat the whole game in a week and have no reason to go back. There’s no microtransactions or battle pass, which is a huge win for players who hate post-launch paywalls. All planned DLC will be story-focused and sold separately, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on critical content if you only buy the base game.
If you’re still on the fence after reading the mafia the old country ign review, I’d recommend watching 10 minutes of raw gameplay footage to see if the driving and gunplay feel like something you can get used to. Most people I’ve talked to say the driving stops being a nuisance after a few hours, but if clunky controls ruin a game for you, you might want to hold off until there’s a patch to adjust the driving physics.
At the end of the day, the mafia the old country ign review is a fair, accurate assessment of what the game delivers: a solid, story-focused crime epic with a few noticeable flaws that don’t drag down the overall experience. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s exactly what long-time Mafia fans have been asking for for years, and it’s a great entry point for new players who want to see what the franchise is all about. If you value well-written characters and a compelling story over endless side content and polished mechanics, this is going to be one of your favorite games of the year. Don’t let the complaints about driving scare you off, you get used to it after a few hours, and the story more than makes up for that small frustration.
