Mafia: The Old Country, being a linear story-driven game, has been the talk of the gaming world ever since its release. Players are pleased that the developers have cut off Mafia’s open-world setting, which was one of the major drawbacks of Mafia 3.
Mafia is a very niche franchise, and it’s unlikely to attract over 100,000 players at a time on Steam. As such, Hanger 13 had to appease its core fanbase, which is small and expects an engaging story-driven game without any unnecessary distractions such as pointless driving or an empty open world. In the case of Mafia: The Old Country, it seemingly checked all the boxes and made most of its playerbase happy, which is proof that the developers are once again on the right path.
Why the Open World Didn’t Work With Mafia 3
The open world of Mafia 3 did not work, primarily because the Mafia franchise isn’t designed as a sandbox game. Mafia is a story-driven game where every mission is heavily scripted to the point where if you don’t follow the path as pre-determined by the developers, it fails. In such a setting, players are more invested in going through the story, learning about the characters, experiencing hype moments, and ultimately reaching a conclusion. When you try to include an open world in it, the game feels dragged out, where you are being forced to delay your conclusion, which feels tedious.
The open world of Mafia 3 was also repetitive and boring, where you didn’t have much to interact with. All you did in that game was travel to a certain destination, clear the area, and move to the next. The activities were pretty much copies of one another, and it felt like the developers ran out of ideas on what to do with the game. The worst part here was that while the core story of Mafia 3 was great, the unnecessary and repetitive open world missions made it feel boring.
One of the biggest design aspects of open world games is to ensure that traveling is enjoyable, but Mafia 3 failed in that quite spectacularly. The slower travel dragged a game that was supposed to be 15 hours long at most up to almost 50 hours, which ended up damaging the general perception of the player base.
There Is A Blatant Problem In Open World Games
Open World games suffer from a major problem, and that can be attributed to their lack of meaningful content. There are good open world games like Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Cyberpunk 2077. However, you don’t get these games very often, and that pretty much answers the issue with this design choice. Game development in 2025 is a lot about quantity over quality, where the faster you push these titles, the faster you make some money.
Some of the aforementioned games have been in development for several years. However, the moment you try to push open world games within a one to two-year development cycles, you end up with soulless, empty games that feel like a chore to play.
One of the best examples of a failed open world game is Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. If you just focus on its story, it’s a pretty good experience, but the open world makes the game a chore. There is pretty much nothing to do or interact with in the huge open world of AC Valhalla, and most of the side missions are just fort captures. It’s the exact same missions repeated over and over, and by the time you reach the next part of the story, you have already grown tired of playing the game.
A second major example of a bad open world game is Halo Infinite, which is definitely a tragedy for such a legendary franchise. Halo, at its core, has always been a story-driven game accompanied by competitive multiplayer. However, the developers decided to go for an open world setting with Halo Infinite, which ended in absolute failure.
The moment you turn on the game, you’ll notice a huge open world, but there’s nothing to do. The missions are once again repetitive and lack purpose, and it feels like the developers are simply making you do things for the sake of it. The worst part is that Halo Infinite was in development for about six years, but the lack of experience of the developers in creating an open world game was evident from its repetitive gameplay.
You may now be asking what the games like Elden Ring, Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Elder Scrolls Skyrim did right that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Halo Infinite could not. The answer is simple, and that is adding meaning to what you do. There are two ways you can make an open world setting engaging: one is to create fun activities like GTA, or create story-driven side quests like Witcher 3 or Elden Ring.
A side quest in Skyrim will often take you to a several hours of worth of journey where you come out and feel satisfied and accomplished. That is not the case with Halo Infinite and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, where every mission feels like a copy of the previous one. However, creating such a game takes time and experience, and not everyone can do it, nor do they need to do it.
Mafia’s Return To Form Is A Stroke Of Genius
Mafia: The Old Country dropped whatever open world design they were trying with Mafia 3 and returned to its linear story-driven route. The Old Country is more akin to Mafia 1 and Mafia 2, where there was no open world, but it still includes free ride. The concept of free ride is always better for the Mafia franchise than an open world. This is because in free roam, the world is still small, and the distance between objectives isn’t too far and wide. You can decide to run around with your car for a bit, or just go back to your mission. However, unlike an open world game, you aren’t forced to add side objectives or extra bits to fill up the world, which makes designing the game a lot simpler.
In the case of the Mafia franchise, the focus is always on its story, characters, and connection with the players. Mafia isn’t like GTA, where the games are built upon the idea of go as you like, do as you want, explore the world, and be the king.
On the contrary, Mafia has a much darker setting where you are working not as a petty thug, but rather as part of a crime syndicate. As such, creating a story plot where your or your family’s life is in danger, while you’re partying in a nightclub, simply doesn’t work. Creating urgency is part of the charm for the Mafia franchise, and Mafia: The Old Country was able to achieve it once again.
Now, it’s important to mention that Mafia: The Old Country isn’t a perfect game. There are inconsistencies in its story, and after a strong start, the developers dropped the ball a bit. However, it is better than Mafia 3 in every aspect, with a tightly gripped story and a pretty smooth 12-hour experience.
There are no unnecessary and repetitive moments in the game, unlike Mafia 3, and you can pretty much rush through the main campaign within a day or two. This definitely looks like a step in the right direction, and if the developers decide to create a new game in the future, all they need is to develop on Mafia: The Old Country, instead of ripping apart its roots.
