Mafia III: Definitive Edition (2020): The Review
Overview
Mafia III hooked me with its compelling characters and bold, assured storytelling, even if the gameplay struggled to keep pace. Most of its missions fall into repetitive open-world routines, which is a shame, because Lincoln is a phenomenal protagonist and New Bordeaux is a richly layered setting that deserved far better than the formulaic structure holding it back.
Score: 7 out of 10
The Positives ✅
Mafia III opens with a bang, a story dripping with soul, blood, and the grit of post-Vietnam America. It’s one of the rare open-world games that dares to use its setting not as window dressing, but as fuel for genuine storytelling. Lincoln Clay’s quest for revenge could’ve been a predictable mobster power fantasy, but Hangar 13 turns it into something more: a smart, layered, and unflinching look at racism, trauma, and moral decay in 1968 New Bordeaux. The writing is sharp, the dialogue burns, and the performances are some of the best of that entire console generation. Father James’s faux-documentary commentary gives the whole story a haunting, reflective tone, making Mafia III’s narrative hit far harder than most open-world games ever dare to.
New Bordeaux itself is stunning in its own way, not because it’s the flashiest open world, but because it feels alive. You’ve got Mardi Gras parades and jazz echoing through neon-lit streets, decrepit bayous crawling with gators, and smoky casinos lining the river. The world reacts to you, too, steal a car in a rich neighborhood and the cops are on you in seconds; do it in the slums and no one bats an eye. It’s those small, systemic touches that make Mafia III feel more immersive and socially aware than its peers. Add to that an absolutely killer soundtrack: the Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, CCR, and you’ve got a sense of time and place that rivals Vice City’s love letter to the ‘80s.
When the story missions hit, they hit hard. Breaking out of a bank vault, infiltrating a sinking riverboat, or tearing through an abandoned amusement park, those moments are cinematic, intense, and unforgettable. Even the game’s upgrade and lieutenant system adds depth, forcing you to choose who gets control of each district and watching your decisions ripple through the story. It’s a clever mechanic that adds stakes and gives Lincoln’s bloody rise to power a sense of consequence few games manage.
The Negatives ⚠️
And then, between all those electrifying story beats, comes the grind. Mafia III’s open-world structure feels ripped straight from the early 2010s, bloated, repetitive, and exhausting. Once you’re done with the main missions, you’ll spend far too long clearing out copy-paste side objectives: kill a guy, blow up some cargo, steal a car, repeat. The first few times? Fun. The twentieth? Soul-crushing. The fact that the game reuses the same locations over and over (yes, you’ll clear the same bathhouse twice in a row) makes it worse.
The combat, while functional, rarely evolves. Stealth is satisfying early on, whistling enemies into a silent takedown feels cool, but enemy AI is brain-dead and never gets smarter. Gunfights blur together, and the cover system sometimes just refuses to cooperate. You’ve got a decent arsenal, sure, but after a few hours, it’s clear the pistol and takedown combo is all you’ll ever need. Combine that with long drives across the map, without any fast travel, mind you, and the pacing starts to drag. You’ll be driving 10 minutes to shoot a guy who dies in 10 seconds, then driving 10 minutes back.
The open world looks rich but feels empty. Outside of collectibles like Playboy magazines and vinyl albums, there’s shockingly little to do. The side missions that are there lack substance, and most of your time is better spent mainlining the story. Then there’s the technical side: a few frame rate dips, several hard crashes, and a general “mid-tier” look to the visuals. Characters have that plasticky, doll-like sheen, and while New Bordeaux’s lighting and shadows shine, textures and models often don’t. The UI and controls also feel awkward, especially on PC, where menus behave like relics from an older era. Mafia III doesn’t fall apart, but it sure creaks at the seams.
The Experience 🎮
Despite its flaws, Mafia III is a game that sticks with you. The story is powerful, the characters linger, and the themes resonate long after the credits roll. It’s messy, often frustratingly so, but it’s also bold and unapologetic. Few open-world games have the nerve to say something real, to use their chaos to reflect a specific moment in history. Mafia III does that, and even when it’s stumbling through repetitive missions or technical hiccups, you can still feel its ambition pulsing beneath the surface.
Playing it feels like living in contradiction. One moment, you’re cruising through the neon-soaked streets with “Paint It Black” blaring on the radio; the next, you’re sighing as you repeat another dull side job. But every time you think you’re ready to quit, the story pulls you back in, another twist, another mission, another moral line to cross. Mafia III may not reinvent the open-world formula, but it has something most others don’t: a heart, a message, and the guts to deliver them without compromise.
In the end, it’s a flawed masterpiece, a story worth experiencing even if the journey there is uneven. It’s beautiful, brutal, repetitive, and unforgettable all at once, a game that doesn’t quite know how to play by the rules, but damn if it doesn’t make an impression trying.
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