I’ve been testing early-access mafia and crime RPGs for over six years, and nothing got my group more hyped than our invite to the recent mafia the old country playtest last month. We went in blind, made a ton of mistakes, missed half the hidden side content, and still walked away talking about the session for weeks after. If you’ve got a spot for an upcoming playtest, or are hoping to get one soon, this guide covers everything we wish we knew before we logged on for the first time. We’re breaking down pre-session prep, in-game choices, feedback best practices, and even how to get the most out of playing with random groups if you don’t have a crew to bring along.
Pre-Session Prep You Don’t Want to Skip Before Your Playtest
A lot of people show up to playtests 5 minutes early, jump straight into the game, and spend the first 20 minutes fumbling with settings or missing important tutorial prompts. Don’t be that person. A little 15-minute prep before your session starts will save you so much frustration, and let you focus on actually testing the game instead of troubleshooting. If you’ve been waiting years for a gritty, story-focused mafia RPG, your mafia the old country playtest is your first chance to see if it lives up to the hype, so don’t waste that opportunity.
First, make sure your PC or console meets the minimum playtest requirements shared in your invite email. The devs usually send these out a week in advance for a reason — the build is unfinished, so it’s not optimized the way the full release will be. We had one person in our group who ignored the GPU requirement and crashed 6 times in the first hour, missing almost all of the opening storyline missions.
You should also set aside time to read the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) carefully before you log on. A lot of playtesters get so excited they skip this, but breaking the NDA can get you banned from future tests for this game and other titles from the same studio. If it says you can’t stream or share screenshots, don’t risk it.
Finally, if you’re playing with a pre-made group, coordinate your playstyles before you start. The game supports both co-op and solo play, but if half your group wants to run guns blazing through family missions and the other half wants to focus on smuggling side content, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time debating what to do next.
To make prep even easier, keep this quick checklist handy before you launch the game:
Key Mechanics to Prioritize During Your Mafia: The Old Country Playtest
This is the fun part, right? But it’s easy to get so caught up in the story that you miss testing the core mechanics the devs are actually looking for feedback on. We made this mistake too — we spent 3 hours chasing a stray cat side quest (it was surprisingly well written) and barely touched the territory control system that was the main focus of this test build. The devs have shared that this mafia the old country playtest is focused specifically on testing core open-world mechanics, so those are the areas they most want feedback on.
First, spend at least 30 minutes testing the combat and cover system early on. The devs have said they’re still tweaking gunplay and melee combat, so pay attention to how responsive aiming feels, whether cover works as expected, and if enemy AI feels fair or overly punishing. We noticed that melee attacks would sometimes register even when we were 3 feet away from an enemy, which we noted in our feedback form.
Next, try out both the family loyalty system and the open-world free roam paths. The game lets you choose to stick strictly to your crime family’s orders, or go rogue and work with rival families for higher payouts. We found that the loyalty system had some really interesting consequences for later missions, but a lot of small dialogue choices didn’t actually impact our loyalty rank the way we expected them to.
You should also take time to explore the map outside of mission markers. The Old Country setting is a fictional take on 1920s Sicily, and there are tons of hidden shops, NPC interactions, and environmental details that the devs are still refining. We found a hidden vineyard smuggling ring in the northern part of the map that most players in our test group didn’t stumble on at all, and the devs told us later that feedback on that hidden content was extremely valuable for them.
How to Give Useful, Actionable Feedback to the Dev Team
A lot of playtesters think their job is just to play the game and have fun, but the most important part of any playtest is the feedback you give at the end. Vague comments like “the game was fun” or “the combat sucks” don’t help the devs fix anything. The more specific you are, the more your input will shape the final release.
First, take notes as you play instead of waiting until the end of the session to fill out the feedback form. It’s easy to forget small bugs or annoying design choices if you wait 3 or 4 hours to write them down. We kept a shared note doc for our group, and we ended up with over 40 individual points of feedback that we never would have remembered if we’d waited until after we finished playing. Even if you only have a 2-hour slot for your mafia the old country playtest, taking 2 minutes to jot down each bug as you hit it will make your feedback way more useful.
When you’re describing a bug or a problem, be as specific as possible. Instead of saying “the game crashed,” write “the game crashed when I tried to interact with the black market NPC in the south village after completing the olive oil smuggling mission.” Include what you were doing right before the bug happened, what you expected to happen, and what actually happened. That makes it way easier for the dev team to replicate and fix the issue.
Also, don’t just share negative feedback. If you love a certain mechanic, or a specific mission felt really well written, tell them that too. Devs get tons of complaints, but positive feedback helps them know what they should keep or expand on in the final build. We told them how much we loved the dynamic weather system that impacted driving and smuggling routes, and they said that was one of the features they were unsure about keeping, so that feedback helped convince them to leave it in.
Common First-Time Playtest Mistakes to Avoid
We made almost all of these mistakes during our own test, so we’re saving you the hassle of repeating them. Most of these are small, but they can ruin your playtest experience or make your feedback way less useful than it could be. One mistake we see a lot of new testers make with the mafia the old country playtest is sticking strictly to the path the game lays out for them, instead of experimenting.
First, don’t rush through the main story just to finish it before your session ends. The devs don’t care if you beat the entire playtest build — they care about your experience with the mechanics as you play. We rushed through the first 2 missions to get to the open world, and we missed a ton of tutorial context for the loyalty system that made the rest of the session way more confusing than it needed to be.
Second, don’t get frustrated by bugs and glitches. This is an unfinished build, not the final release. You will run into broken quests, weird visual glitches, and crashes. That’s the whole point of a playtest. If you get too upset when things break, you’ll miss the chance to actually test the parts of the game that are working, and you’ll end up writing feedback that’s overly negative instead of constructive.
Third, don’t ignore the feedback form. A lot of people finish the playtest, log off, and never fill out the form. But that’s the whole reason you got invited in the first place. The form only takes 15 to 20 minutes to fill out, and your input could directly change parts of the game that other players will experience when it launches.
Finally, don’t be afraid to play the game “wrong.” Test out weird choices, try to break things, do things the devs probably didn’t expect players to do. We tried to sell a stolen family car to a member of the same family, which triggered a hilarious unscripted brawl that the devs said they hadn’t even seen before. Those unexpected interactions give the devs more insight into how players will actually engage with the game once it’s released.
At the end of the day, the mafia the old country playtest is a rare chance to get a first look at one of the most anticipated crime RPGs in years, and help shape its final version before launch. If you take a little time to prep, focus on the core mechanics, give clear specific feedback, and avoid common beginner mistakes, you’ll have a way better experience, and your input will actually matter to the dev team. Even if you’ve never joined a playtest before, don’t stress — the devs expect new players to ask questions and make mistakes, so just have fun with it. We’re already signed up for the next round of testing, and we can’t wait to see how the game evolves between now and launch.
