Gaming

Mafia: The Old Country – Everything You Need to Know About The Return of the Gangster Franchise

Mafia: The Old Country – Everything You Need to Know About The Return of the Gangster Franchise

2K and Hangar 13 are putting the finishing touches on Mafia: The Old Country ahead of the imminent launch. The game will be the first new entry in the franchise since 2016’s Mafia III, which sold relatively well but was not at all well received among fans. Afterward, they released Mafia: Definitive Edition in 2020, a remake of the original game.

The first rumor appeared in 2022, when insider ShpeshalNick said the new game would follow the story of Don Salieri’s rise in Sicily. The insider was right about the setting but not about the protagonist, but we’ll dive into that later. The development team officially confirmed the existence of a new game project later that year, during the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the Mafia IP. But it wasn’t until two years later, at Gamescom 2024, that Mafia: The Old Country was unveiled.

Mafia: The Old Country – Release date, platforms, pricing, editions

Mafia: The Old Country is scheduled to launch on August 8, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X. The game is priced at $49.99 for the Standard Edition, while the Deluxe Edition costs $10 more and includes the digital art book, the original soundtrack, and the following in-game items:

  • Padrino Pack
    • “Lupara Speciale” Shotgun
    • “Vendetti Speciale” Pistol
    • “Immortale” Charm
    • “Padrino” Outfit
    • “Stiletto Speciale” Knife
    • “Eckhart Speciale” Limousine
    • “Cosimo” Horse and Accessories
  • Gatto Nero Pack
    • “Bodeo Nero” Pistol
    • “Velocità” Charm
    • “Gatto Nero” Outfit
    • “Carozella Nero” Race Car

Pre-ordering any version of the game provides access to the so-called Soldato Pack, which includes the “Soldato” outfit, the “Scannaturi Speciale” knife, the “Tesoro” horse and accessories, and the “Lupara” charm.

Mafia: The Old Country

Genre, setting, and story premise

As suggested earlier, the rumors were correct about Hangar 13 going back to the roots of the organization. Mafia: The OId Country takes place around 1900 in Sicily, Italy, in the fictional town of San Celeste, which was previously seen in Mafia II.

However, the protagonist won’t be a younger Don Salieri. Instead, players will step into the shoes of Enzo Favara, a young man who spent his adolescence being forced to work in the island’s sulfur mines. Now that he has a chance to prove himself to the rising Torrisi crime family, he will do anything in his power to hold on to this opportunity and defend the Torrisi from rival families who would want to see them fall.

The development team stressed the importance of delivering authenticity when recreating turn-of-the-20th-century Sicily, and it isn’t just talk, either. They partnered with Stormind (Remothered: Tormented Fathers, Remothered: Broken Porcelain, Batora: Lost Haven, and A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead), which is based in Catania, Sicily, to ensure that.

Genre-wise, this is shaping up to be a fairly straightforward third-person single player action/adventure game.

Gameplay

In the words of Hangar 13 president Nick Baynes, Mafia: The Old Country is both a return to the roots of the franchise and a step forward. He’s referring to the fact that the game won’t feature a plethora of side content like the full-fledged open world Mafia III. That said, The Old Country will be completely linear and won’t offer an open world at all, whereas even the original Mafia allowed exploration of the city of Lost Heaven, despite the lack of anything truly meaningful to do. So, do not expect to be able to explore as much as in the previous games. This time around, Hangar 13 is betting everything on delivering a powerful, cinematic narrative.

Of course, this is no walking simulator. There will be plenty of action between story beats, with players engaging in tense life-or-death fights up close with a blade or from afar with various firearms, including authentic period handguns, rifles, and shotguns. There’s third-person cover-based gunplay, too. Stealth is also very much a tool in Enzo Favara’s arsenal, provided he can get close enough to perform a takedown move. In fact, Hangar 13 said they designed the game around a certain scarcity of resources, so being tactical with the approach to fights is highly recommended.

Mafia: The Old Country is set in a variety of Sicilian landscapes, ranging from underground crypts and crumbling ruins to lush vineyards and opulent opera houses. Travel between point A and B can happen on horseback or while driving in authentic turn-of-the-century cars, and the trailers have already shown that these segments can include combat, too.

Mafia: The Old Country PC System Requirements

The new Mafia game is powered by Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 technology, in a shift from the proprietary Fusion Engine seen in Mafia III and Mafia: Definitive Edition (itself an evolution of Mafia II’s Illusion Engine).

PC store pages have listed the following minimum and recommended PC system requirements for Mafia: The Old Country:

Minimum:
OS: Windows 10 / 11
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X / Intel Core i7-9700K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / NVIDIA RTX 2070
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 55 GB available space
Additional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system. Requires SSD ; Graphic Preset: Medium ; Resolution: 1080p

Recommended:
OS: Windows 10 / 11
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X / Intel Core i7-12700K
Memory: 32 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT / NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 55 GB available space
Additional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system. Requires SSD ; Graphic Preset: High ; Resolution: 1440p

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