Mafia was a series I recently got into a few years ago because of that remake of the first game that came out back 5 years ago. It was rather refreshing at the time to play a story driven game where it's inspired by crime stories and gangsters but there is no open world attached to it. There was an influx of those kinds of games coming out and Mafia 1's approach of just having the campaign be the actual missions with the needless and boring downtime present in those games not even being there. What might've viewed as a drawback in 2002 is a selling point for a structurely and narratively faithful remake in 2020. A few years later the same devs make a prequel to that first game especially in a time where gaming prequels are not as prevelant anymore and with Red Dead 2 being the only major one after 2013.
As a whole, Mafia the Old Country is very much in line with that remake of Mafia 1 in 2020. Your enjoyment of the game hinges on how much you like that remake and the story this game is trying to tell. The story in Old Country is well acted, written and told with gameplay that manages to be solid enough but nothing amazing. However like the aforementioned remake of Mafia 1 since the open world is a backdrop, there is no excessive amounts of trekking, downtime and mechanics that is mostly window dressing when getting to the next story beat. Where a game like Red Dead 2 can be overly indulgent among the needless open world fluff. It also helps that while The Old Country has some of the most rudimentary stealth and detection system in a mainstream game I've played, it's never overly cheap and frustrating that it hinders progression of the story.
The gameplay when broken down is horseback riding, driving, knife fighting, stealth, and shooting. It combines many different gameplay ideas rather than focuses on one thing. One interesting about The Old Country is that the player will have access to horses as a main mode of transportation but as the game progresses, they get phased out and cars are used instead. It's interesting to any game let alone story that shows this at all since it shows how times are changing. Much of the horseback riding and car gameplay will consist of npc conversations, shootouts and chases much like how it was in Mafia Definitive Edition. The chases also manage to hit the sweet spot of not being overly punishing but not brainlessly easy. Milage may very on how good you are at with playing games where there is gameplay involving high speed movment.
When there is downtime driving sections, it's usual characters speaking to each other and giving their thoughts on situations and getting from point A to B doesn't take too long.
Shooting and stealth you've played before. There's cover based shooting with firearms but nothing overly modern due to the time period with generous amount of healing items both found in levels and when looting corpses. Weapon sounds and feedback for killing enemies are moderately satisfying. It still isn't as smooth as the system in the Last of Us games however but it's fine here and never gets in the way. If cover shooting what all this game was then it could fall apart due to how one note this style of game can be luckily it isn't.
This now leads to stealth and like I said before, the guard detection speed is some of if not the slowest in a mainstream game. I would almost find it hard to believe someone would actively fail these sections. Early game I accidentally vaulted over cover due to me being not being used to triangle being vault and I was close enough to the guards for it to be a detection but the game never did. A ghost run here wouldn't really be too hard due to how slow the guards' vision is. Knife kills don't need to be used often due to the mashing mini game for knockouts not taking too long. This does work to the game's favor since an unforgiving stealth system would get in the way of story pacing and make the many scripted detections be infuriating due to the amount of times seen due AI that feels like they are psychic.
The knife fighting is a decently fleshed out system. It isn't overly deep by any means but there is enough going on with a forgiving parry window, knowing when to get strikes in and doing guard breaks that isn't dull and mindless. Better than shootout bosses.
There is a light exploration with currency buying weapons, knives and charms and charm slots to give the player a reason to look around the enviroment along with whitestone to replenish the knife something like Resident Evil 4 Remake.
The story itself is well acted, written, has well made cutscenes that never go on for too long and gets character and story beats across quickly and concisively. There is also a decent amount of restraint with no shooting and killing until a little while into the game.
There is a disappointing mystery box of Isabella's kid which would be fine if this wasn't a prequel to Mafia.
Overall, Old Country is a solid title that is more Mafia DE.
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