Mafia: The Old Country / Steam
The release windows for GTA 6 and Mafia: The Old Country are close, and this is causing some concerns. Developers of the new Mafia say the games are very different and won’t compete.
In an interview with IGN, game director Alex Cox and Hangar 13 president Nick Baines dismissed these concerns, calling comparisons with GTA 6 inappropriate. According to them, Mafia: The Old Country shouldn’t even be considered an open-world game.
“These are different games, and over time, that becomes even more pronounced. Sure, if you’ve been tracking GTA and Mafia since 2000, 2002, when GTA 3 and Mafia came out, they were mechanically very similar games. But Mafia has always been more about its linear narrative rather than the sandbox experience that Rockstar does so incredibly well. In fact, over time, Mafia has become more and more about linear storytelling, so I don’t think the games are fundamentally similar, besides having a common theme,” explains Alex Cox.
The new game is more reminiscent of Mafia 1 and 2, rather than Mafia 3, which has an open world. It’s a linear, narrative-driven game offering a cinematic experience. You can immerse yourself in an authentic recreation of 1900s Sicily, ride horses like in another famous Rockstar game, and get distracted by some details, but that’s where the similarity with the open world ends.
“The best way to look at it is to compare it to Mafia 1 and 2. And I think how we would describe Mafia 1 and 2, I think a lot of fans would too, is as a linear adventure set in a world around you, where you can stray off the beaten path and explore, but actually, the game leads you along a story path. So I think if you use Mafia 1 or 2 as touchpoints for what it looks like, it’s definitely closer than Mafia 3,” says Nick Baines.
But still, in Mafia: The Old Country, there’s some freedom of action and elements of world exploration. You can travel by horse or car, there’s a map (developers didn’t confirm if it’s all of Sicily), but the narrative is linear, and the game is focused on the plot.
“You can travel the world by car, on foot, or on horseback. It’s just a rural setting. Like in Mafia 1 and 2, it’s a linear story. You travel through the world, some missions happen in the world, in an open environment. There’s a full map. There’s a world to explore. But, like in Mafia 1 and 2, the focus is on the main story,” adds Baines.
In the interview, developers also talked a lot about the main character Enzo, about recreating an authentic world, and about connections to other games in the series. They promised to reveal more details next year.