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Mafia III Review:
Welcome to New Bordeaux. Hope it was worth the wait.
Note: This only covers the base game for Mafia III and not the expansions. Game has been played on PC, beaten 22nd of February 2025.
As a longtime Mafia fan who's been meaning to play this game since release I still feel unsure whether to call it disappointing or a satisfying followup quite yet but hopefully this review will help you, the reader, come to a conclusion yourself.
See, I actually preordered Mafia III back in the old times of 2016. It was a gift from myself to myself for turning 18 so you know I've been excited for the game for a while. I played a ton of Mafia II at the time and was hyperfixated to it at the time. Then the game finally came out and wouldn't you know: My PC at the time was too underpowered to run it at more than a powerpoint framerate. I used to rock an i7 920 with a GPU that was so bad it was bottlenecking my otherwise acceptable if not bit out of date CPU. So until recently my experience with the game was mostly through YouTube videos. Eventually my interest and attachment towards the Mafia series has been fading away as more of a thing I'd be mildly interested in. Then the teaser for Mafia: The Old Country dropped and I knew I had to replay through the series. Now that I have a pretty beefy PC (4090 ftw) I could finally experience this game I've been so excited about all these years. And I'm glad I did. I think I was finally able to put my curiosity to rest and finally see if the game was worth the hype or as bad as some people said it was. And though I have my criticisms I had an overall good time.
This is how Mafia works.
(Spoilers in this paragraph) The story behind Mafia III follows Lincoln Clay, a black man who finally found somewhere he belongs. Just having returned from Vietnam things were seemingly starting to look up. Only thing needed was to help his old man Sammy Robinson with a few tasks, one of which being the robbing of the federal reserve on behalf of Sal Marcano. Unfortunately the plan backfired on them, the Marcanos killing Sammy and his son Ellis and severely injuring Lincoln. Once Lincoln finally recovered he set out to ruin the Marcanos little by little, just like they did him. And with the help of others who have been screwed over by Marcano becoming his underbosses as well as his CIA friend, John Donovan, he's been able to take over New Bordeaux (which is pretty much the in-universe version of New Orleans) and take down the Marcanos.
(Very light spoilers in this paragraph also) Fans of Mafia II's story will also be pleasantly surprised to know that Mafia III does follow up on what happened after Mafia II's story, featuring Vito Scaletta and a couple other characters in very critical roles (one you have to keep an eye out, iykyk)
Vito wishes he looked as handsome as he did in Mafia II (pictured here) however.
The story while being fairly unremarkable was made much better by everyone's performances as well as the cutscenes which sold you on it, and something the Mafia series has been excelling at since the start. The narrative showed the hardships and struggles people of color had to survive during the 60s and the turmoil following the civil rights movement. Anything from the police dispatcher being very indifferent towards crime in poor and (especially) black neighborhoods (saying things boiling down to "someone could maybe check what's been going on if you want, but no pressure" meanwhile rich white areas would have her push urgency and urging the police to take action as soon as possible) to the various amount of white characters and pedestrians hurling around the N word with the hard r and let's not forget about the KKK kidnapping and killing black people with the antagonists gladly being affiliated with them despite that.
Pictured: Billboard advertising one of said racists.
The atmosphere is where I think the game shines. A great atmosphere leading to an immersive experience has been a series staple. From the Depression-Era 30s grime of Mafia: TCOLH to the prosperity associated with the 50s that Mafia II perfectly captures and to the beautiful yet confusing times of the late 60s that Mafia III depicts. Anything from the vehicles to the sountrack to even the weather and the city's look and feel immerses you into the era even if exclusively in the context of a game. Lots of what you associate with the late 60s is well-represented here. From the rock and soul hits to the muscle cars to the hippies and the hyperconservative racists; they all are included and form a glimpse into the past, the gameplay being the mechanism which you use to connect with the world.
Mmmm...beer.
The gameplay is fairly run of the mill GTA-type. You steal cars, use guns and do missions. The car handling does feel a bit less realistic than the predecessors but then again the action overall is supposed to be a bit more bombastic and Hollywood-like, and that's okay! The story missions however can get old and repetitive fast. Outside of the boss mission where you kill whoever controls the area most of the missions tend to be fairly repetitive: shoot this guy, interrogate that guy (and either get him to join you on your endeavours or kill him), shoot everyone in sight, damage items, take money and so on. It can get pretty old but it's still not to an extent that makes it unplayable for me. It's just a lot of filler and fluff to pad out the game's length. While Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven and Mafia II were experiences I could describe as short and sweet, Mafia III tries to take advantage of its non-linearity and approach to gameplay by turning what should've been at most a 20-25 hour experience into a 35 hour one.
It really is as cool as it looks.
See, while previous games in the series were to the point when it comes to execution and approach, Mafia III allows more freedom and exploration as well as various caveats to make the open world gameplay fit more. One of them being the ability to summon up a weapon van to replenish your ammo, buy upgrades or new guns, someone to bring any car you so desire to you at the flick of a finger and finally someone who stores your money (which you can still use btw) (you need to do this because if you die, which you will plenty, you will lose half of the undeposited money each time). Since most missions are the simple kill the guy type, they can be approached in a multitude of ways and dying doesn't usually bring you back far away from the location. It's like you died and woke back up right outside or close by (Honestly I think that's what makes those missions still bearable for me). I think GTA still does the open world crime game approach the best but Mafia III's attempt is honorable, even if slightly more of a curse than a blessing.
You want something? You let him know.
The game has some pretty jarring functionality issues, including but not limited to mirrors breaking, cars sometimes either flying or colliding into the ground then jumping out, various visual bugs such as the comedically broken mirrors (which worked perfectly in Mafia II) but the worst one has to be the few missions that were broken at a functional level and I had to reload last checkpoint on them multiple times just to progress further. They're a mild annoyance at worst thankfully and nothing critical to the degree it leaves you disgruntled. Some of this can be blamed on the fact when the team changed from 2K Czech to Hangar 13 the team also went from being predominantly Czech to predominantly American. Quite a few 2k Czech employees had to move to the US to translate the source code of the engine Mafia uses (Illusion engine) from Czech into English so that the team could understand what's been going on.
This game can be truly beautiful. Sucks you can't see it from these screenshots.
Despite all the flaws I mentioned I personally still believe Mafia III is a worthwhile experience for any Mafia fan. and if you're not a Mafia fan, come back after you played the other two. Believe me, you'll thank me for it.