Mafia: Definitive Edition | Xbox One Review

In late 2001, a game was released that changed the approach of how the medium can tell a story, and give the player a new found sense of freedom. The game I’m referring to is of course Grand Theft Auto III. While it wasn’t exactly the first title to do this, it certainly popularized a new genre: the open-world game. While the genre is commonplace now, open-world games made in the early days went by another name, a derogatory term that I’m not particularly fond of, “GTA Clone.” 

Games franchises like True Crime, The Getaway, Mercenaries, and of course Mafia, were all labeled as “GTA clones.” Sure these games were similar in many ways to Rockstar’s benchmark title: having some kind of cops & robbers narrative, a free roaming city to explore, and many enemies to shoot. But each of the titles listed above still had enough little bits of uniqueness that simply calling them clones takes away their much deserved legitimacy. 

The original Mafia was released in mid-2002 for PC and consoles in 2004. At the time of its initial PC release, the game was praised for its sharp and smooth graphics, and its realism. It would spawn two sequels: Mafia II in 2010 and Mafia III in 2016 by Hangar 13 Studios, the same studio that developed this remake. Each title told its own story about the underworld of organized crime, all set in one shared universe spanning several decades.

A Definitive Story

The game takes place in the city of Lost Heaven (a fictional representation of Chicago) beginning in 1930 at the tail end of Prohibition, spanning to 1938 with a looming threat brewing in Germany. You play as Tommy Angelo, a simple cabbie trying to make a meager living at the height of the Great Depression. One fateful night, he’s strong-armed by two mobsters into being their getaway driver after being ambushed by a rival crime family. Soon after, Tommy decides to work for the Salieri Crime Family who is vying for control over the city’s alcohol distribution from the rival Morello Family. Over the years, Tommy becomes a trusted associate of Don Salieri and becomes the ultimate wiseguy.

In my opinion, the story is Mafia’s greatest strength. The same can be said about the series as a whole. The developers at Hangar 13 were able to expand and retell the story. Thus an entirely new voice cast was hired to re-record the dialog and motion capture techniques were used in cutscenes to enhance the drama, making it more cinematic and convey emotions in its characters that simply weren’t possible 18 years ago. All this while still managing to keep the original’s plot and story beats intact. To me that’s the greatest improvement of what this remake has to offer, we can now see the internal conflict of the main protagonist in trying to balance his life between his family and his “family.”

Old & New

The basic gameplay mechanics of Mafia are still present in Mafia: Definitive Editions. Even though it features a fully open-world city, the story is presented in a linear fashion and is divided into chapters. Therefore it seems like having an open-world city is a wasted effort in a campaign that forces you to only go from Point A to Point B. However, Freeride Mode makes a return, a mode where you aren’t tied to any missions and you can freely explore the city and cause as much “GTA-style” mayhem as you desire. 

The developers at Hangar 13 rebuilt the entire game from the ground up, using a modified version of the game engine that ran Mafia III. As such it updates the combat including lock-on targeting, aim assist, and a cover system common in modern third-person shooters. The new changes work well and feel natural to anyone who has played any third-person shooter in the past five to ten years; you’ll easily fit right in.

The Sound of the 30’s

The city of Lost Heaven itself has been rebuilt and restyled to better resemble an early 20th Century metropolis. While the layout remains mostly unchanged, certain locations and objectives have been moved slightly along with adding new pathways and back alleys to aid in car chases. Just like the rest of the game, the updates to the city are outstanding and look more lively than the original. More NPCs walk the streets, more cars are present on the road, both of which add new obstacle challenges whenever you’re in a high speed pursuit or escape. 

Graphically the city looks absolutely spectacular. Particularly at night, with lit neon signs on buildings, car headlight reflections shining off wet roads after a rainstorm, and street lamps lining the roads. The devs here really went above and beyond in making Lost Heaven feel more vibrant and lived in.

As for its sound design, the new voice cast is superb. The new orchestral score has been re-recorded, and all the licensed music of the era present in the original make their return. There are also new additions from other artists of the time period like Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, Duke Ellington and many others. Radio announcers and period appropriate newscasts have also been added, along with actual recordings of presidential speeches about the state of affairs from Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, adding even more authenticity.

Final Thoughts

If you enjoyed playing the original 2002 game, then I feel you’ll have an absolute blast playing this remake. It injects enough modern gaming conventions making it feel like new while retaining the identity of what made the original a classic. The graphics do look amazing, and it’s worth noting that I’m not playing this at its full potential in 4K, since I don’t have a capable display. So keep that in mind in any future games I review where I mention graphics.

However, it’s not a perfect game. It can get repetitive at times, particularly in the gunplay and driving. And it does have the occasional glitch or two, but those are few and far between and what few criticisms I do have doesn’t make the game any less enjoyable.

This remake is part of an overall effort by Hangar 13 and 2K Games to make the “Definitive Trilogy,” which also includes a graphical remaster of Mafia II and an enhanced version of Mafia III, which includes all the DLC and extra content released as one nice Trilogy pack. If you enjoy open-world shooters or if you’re a fan of the gangster genre, I absolutely recommend picking this up, and at a budget price you really can’t go wrong.

This review is based on a purchased copy of Mafia: Definitive Edition for Xbox One. It’s also available on PlayStation 4 and PC.