Review: Mafia: Definitive Edition is a clunky, dated remake

The crime genre is one that is filled to the brim with classics. The Godfather, the Grand Theft Auto series, Goodfellas, etc.. It’s something we all know so well and Mafia: Definitive Edition taps into that breadth of knowledge to try and create a rich story.

Mafia: Definitive Edition is a remake of the 2002 2k Czech game. Most people are more familiar with the following sequels but this remake ties is the black sheep of the series. The story follows Tommy Angelo, a bored cabbie who yearns for more. He craves wealth, status, and a place to belong. After brushing shoulders with some gangsters during the prohibition era, he sees an opportunity and begins to get in deep.

All is well and good at first. Nice cars, nice suits, a family, and money all keep him satisfied but it quickly begins to spiral. As things get dicey between two warring crime families, blood is spilt and there are unfortunate casualties creating doubt and paranoia amongst everyone.

It’s a story that, while not as strong as the sequels, is definitely engaging. The setting is ripe for tons of fantastic exploration of history. We see lots of bootlegging, Hoovervilles, radio reports on real-world history such as updates on Hitler’s reign, and much more. It’s a world that definitely feels authentic in its set-dressing, which is what the Mafia series excels at.

There are also constant setpieces from high-stakes races to big heists. Mafia is a game that rarely ever makes you feel bored by its action, every mission is something new. It’s not just the big car chases or bloody gun battles that kept me hooked, though. It’s the internal struggle of Tommy Angelo that really makes the story. Despite being a hardened killer, he has morals. He keeps his “job” separate from his home life, he won’t kill innocents, and he is constantly weighed down by guilt.

It would have been great to see more between Tommy and his partner, Sarah. Their relationship was definitely intriguing and there’s a lot of potential teased. They don’t give a lot of time for Tommy to breathe outside of his day to day as a criminal. You only get some incredibly brief glimpses at what happens when he goes home and how his job weighs on him personally.

The drama of what’s going on between the warring families only carries it so far because we’ve seen that so many times before. Since this is a remake where the story was far more fleshed out, it would’ve been great to see Hanger 13 double down on Tommy on a more intimate level.

The story also feels like it loses focuses once it reaches the third act. It doesn’t know what it is anymore and starts rushing in different directions. All of Mafia: Definitive Edition is told as a recounting of events from Tommy’s POV. He’s explaining the years prior so he can only really tell the other person what he knows or experienced. Then, randomly, the game cuts to what the villains are doing. You spend several minutes watching them do stuff and it makes no sense.

The game completely disregards the fact that this is a first-person retelling for no reason. Not only that but the big twist and finale of the game feels way out of left field. It’s not impossible to believe but it’s asking a lot of the player to try and go with it. The third act just becomes this messy, haphazard rush to get to the credits. Of course, some of these are carry-overs from the original game but given they remade the whole game, they could have done more to fix this.

Where I expected Hanger 13 to take more liberties with Mafia: Definitive Edition is the gameplay. Everything from the shooting, the driving, and the mission design feel straight out of 2002. There are some good things about the gameplay such as AI who try to flank you and flush you out of cover with molotov cocktails. That said, they seem to be limited in their depth.

I got into a police chase where I was on foot. I hopped a wall and stood in this gated lot. They stood outside the gate, staring at me and shooting the gate. None of them tried to hop the wall or landed a single shot on me as I stood still. I eventually just jumped back over the wall and let them kill me.

I also had a cop chasing me and I pulled over to bribe them. The cop just kept driving past me and I eventually lost my wanted level. I don’t know if it’s just cops who are wildly dull or if the AI are better scripted for the tight, linear environments.

When it came time for a shootout, of which there are many, it felt hit or miss. Some guns have that punch that you really desire like the shotgun and bolt-action rifle. Others, like the Tommy Gun, feel like you’re filling people with holes yet it’s barely doing any damage. I distinctly remember shooting 35 rounds into two guys but they were still alive.

Mafia: Definitive Edition plays a lot like a cover shooter, though. So if you’re out in the open for too long, someone else’s Tommy Gun will drop you pretty quickly. It all feels terribly inconsistent. On top of all of that, Tommy is meant to be this inexperienced gangster so his aim is shaky. This would make sense at the start of the game but given it takes place over 5+ years, he should have a better handle on this after a while.

It felt like I was playing The Last of Us where ammo is scarce and you have to make all your shots count. Why in the world would you make your game about gangsters like this? It doesn’t make any sense. The inexperienced gangster who struggles in combat also barely holds any weight in melee fights either. Tommy will take on groups of 3 or more people with just his fists and act like he’s Batman.

The logic they try to apply to the game’s most infuriating mechanics doesn’t even feel consistent. Where Tommy strives is in his driving since he’s this expert taxi driver. He’s the wheelman and because of that, you get into a lot of car chases. I personally really hated driving in Mafia: Definitive Edition.

It’s easy to see what Hanger 13 was going for but they don’t quite nail it. Mafia 3 had these slick muscle cars that whipped around corners, kicking up smoke behind them. It was heavily reminiscent of films like Bullit which were from that same era. Mafia: Definitive Edition tries to apply that to the 1930s and it feels weird. These cars are so stiff and heavy that when they turn corners, they just slide and slam into other cars or poles.

Maybe I just suck at driving but it was never a very pleasurable experience. It doesn’t help that the car chases that happen remove any player agency. You partake in these drawn out chases where you drive through the city at high-speeds but the story doesn’t want you to crash them or kill them yet. You have to reach a certain location for them to either crash themselves or reach reinforcements. In many of these chases, the game will not let you catch up to them or do anything to intervene.

At one point, I did catch up because the car I was chasing crashed by mistake. I ended up catching up earlier than the game wanted me to and I got a mission failed screen… for no reason. I did exactly what I was told to, I caught them and I was punished. Glitches like this happen constantly. Whether it’s a nonsensical mission fail, a visual bug, or things spawning in and out randomly. I had enemies spawning both directly in front of and behind me during fights. I even had an object spawn under my car and give me a slight boost through the air during a chase.

The Verdict

Like Mafia 3, Mafia: Definitive Edition is a game that works as a good movie. It’s not a game that works as a good *game*. It’s buggy, it’s clunky, and is often just frustrating or unsatisfying. Hopefully, Hanger 13 is able to learn more lessons from this game because I’m not sure a fourth Mafia game can survive this sort of treatment.