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I like living in New Bordeaux, more than I probably would've liked living in 1968.

In the past 24 hours and some change I have logged a great deal of time into Mafia III. This sequel comes from Hangar 13, a new studio established to steward this franchise forward. I appreciate some of the leaps Hangar 13 has made here.

For one, this game is not directly about the Italian Mob. In New Bordeaux, a convincing facsimile of New Orleans, Louisiana, the Italian Mob is the dominant faction in the city. Bi-racial orphan Lincoln Clay has returned from Vietnam to say goodbye to his adoptive brother and father, the leader of the local black mob. Family comes first though, and Clay brings his military training to bear to help his family out of debt to Marcano crime family. Following a successful heist of the Federal Reserve, Marcano wipes out the black mob and takes all the money. A botched execution leaves Lincoln alive and ready for revenge.

I'm not done with Mafia III, but one thing Hangar 13 has down is the narrative. Lincoln Clay's story is compelling, a young man trying to find a family, only to lose it again and again. He's pulled from the wreckage of the black mob's bar headquarters by Father James, who is oddly all about with Clay killing Marcano, but Clay doesn't want to stop there. This is a roaring rampage of revenge. Lincoln vows to slowly take everything from Marcano, burning down his empire and family before finally Sal Marcano himself.

Clay is very good at what he does - killing - and he doesn't do mercy.

What I've related above takes place over the course of the opening 4-5 hours of Mafia III, but it doesn't feel like it's all setup. Mafia III takes time to set up its relationships. You understand the connection Clay has to his adoptive family and the working respect he has with Sal Marcano and other crime families. You gain some insight into the friendship between Lincoln, his adoptive brother Ellis, local mechanic Danny Burke, and Marcano's heir Giorgi.

As Lincoln begins his revenge, you're introduced to his underbosses: Cassandra, a young woman you free early on who rises to become the leader of the Haitians; Thomas Burke, former boss of the Irish Mob and Danny's father; and Vito Scaletta, the aging made man sent from Empire Bay to keep the Marcanos in line. (Vito is the connective tissue between this game and Mafia II, which Vito starred in.) Each feels like they inhabit their own worlds with their own driving motivations.

The presentation and dialogue in Mafia III is top-notch. I can't tell if it'll hold up throughout the entire game yet, but Hangar 13 feels self-assured in the story it's telling. Mafia III has one of the better stories in an open-world title. Hell, I'd watch this as a television series.

I was surprised to find out that Mafia III is not one of those run-and-gun style open-world games. It's subdued. Sure, you will fight it out in pitched gun battles and Mafia III's guns feel good and meaty. They have the right amount of recoil, your enemies sport some good hit animations, and that "splut" sound when you get a headshot is immensely satisfying. Melee combat is equally strong and rather brutal with Lincoln's combat knife at the forefront.

Mafia III wants you to lay low though. Out of the streets you can drive like like a madman, but you have to watch out for the cops. This leads to you tearing through the city until you see the police, at which point you slow down and obey traffic laws. (Tip: the normal driving system is prone to wide slides on turns and feels odd. Switch to simulation in the options menu for a much better experience.) You can steal any car, but if a witness sees you, they'll try to call the cops, meaning you have to chase them down. There are collectibles, but they're in the backrooms of businesses, many of which will call the cops on you for trespassing.

Even when you're in a combat situation, it pays to be stealthy. Lincoln Clay is a glass cannon; he can dish out damage, but he can't really take sustained fire. Trying to run-and-gun too much will likely get you overwhelmed and killed. Instead, you want to use cover and stealth kills to whittle down enemy forces. I expected something closer to Grand Theft Auto here, but it's more like Watch Dogs or Assassin's Creed. It's competent stealth; I rarely felt like the controls let me down and got me caught.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, Mafia III feels a lot like the last entry in that franchise: Syndicate. Lincoln collects intel from his underbosses, former Army handler John Donovan, informants, and wiretaps. In each district - Delray Hollow, River Row, Pointe Verdun, Barclay Mills, Frisco Fields, Tickfaw Harbour, Southdowns, Downtown, the French Ward, and Bayou Fantom - Lincoln will damage and break up the local racket. Once he's done enough damage, the racket leader comes out of hiding. Then you can either kill the racket leader, or turn them to your cause.

Once you've taken out enough rackets, the district boss shows their face in a more elaborate mission or set piece. You kill them and then hand that district to one of your underbosses. There's a metagame here where you need to watch how you divide the districts up: Cassandra, Burke, and Vito all have their own power bases to be concerned about and they want certain districts and rackets under their control. The idea is if you stiff one underboss too much, they may turn against you, but I haven't progressed far enough to where that's a problem.

What Mafia III does better than Assassin's Creed Syndicate is having a bit more variety in its missions. Sure, there are a number of "go here, kill X" missions, but Hangar 13 at least tried to make each racket feel a bit different overall. There's some flavour that differentiates the prostitution racket for the union ones. And as Lincoln takes over the city, the rackets are turned into more "respectable" businesses, though it's clear Lincoln and his underbosses are still criminals.

Technically, Mafia III is a bit rough. In motion, the game looks fine, but the image quality isn't all that great for a PC title. For some reason, perhaps the choice of anti-aliasing, the entire game has a soft lens over it. It leads to distinct images having this bluriness to them and there no way to turn it completely off. There's also a good amount of pop-in and some dodgy textures. The lighting is great, but ther weather system isn't completely up to snuff. Mafia III just seems to flip-flop between looking really good and rough as hell from moment-to-moment.

In motion, you'll probably be fine with it unless you're a PC player in search of the highest fidelity. It's worth noting that the PC version is locked to 30 fps just like the console versions, though Hangar 13 has promised a patch with 60 fps and unlimited frame rate options this weekend. If you're wondering why the game has mixed reviews on Steam, it's mostly due to that 30 fps lock. Other players have also reported issues with keybindings and frequent crashes. I've only crashed once so far, but you've been warned.

So far, the rest is good enough that I'm willing to overlook the jank. I want to dive more into Lincoln Clay's world. I want to know more about his crew. And frankly, I want to see him continue to go Punisher on Sal Marcano's whole empire. If I have to deal with some fuzziness to get there, I'm fine with that.

Mafia III is a noble effort, but some underlying problems keep the game from greatness.

As I stated before, Mafia III tells its story well. Narrative, dialogue, and some impressive motion capture come together to make a set of characters that feel real. You understand Lincoln's desire for revenge, his friendship with John Donovan, his working relationship with Cassandra, Vito, and Burke. Early on, the story is not only well-told, it's efficient, thanks the documentary framing that allows Hangar 13 to fill in certain gaps and highlight important moments. The pacing is key here. Beyond that, the game's handling of race is intriguing; to the point that I'll be talking about that in a separate article.

The problem is the narrative and the game eventually are at odds. The open-world structure robs Mafia III of its momentum part way through the game.

Mafia III has a semi-linear progression to it. There are a total of ten districts. In each district there are two rackets being run by Marcano's mob, varying from sex work, to drug trade, shipping contraband, and more. Engaging with a racket highlights points around the district and it's your job to head to each point and cause damage. Hangar 13 does add some mission variety and the contacts themselves are interesting if you take the time to engage with their stories, but many of those missions are the same: kill targets or damage property.

Once you've damaged a racket enough, you can take down the lieutenant who controls that racket and put that racket under the control of one of your underbosses. Once you taken down both rackets, you can tackle the local underboss. Once that's done, you hand the district over to either Vito, Cassandra, or Burke. Depending on which one you choose, you'll unlock perks like new weapons or upgrades for Lincoln.

There's a rather robust narrative layer here too, as the underbosses seemingly acknowledge previous choices you've made. Vito got angry because I put the rackets in one district under him, only to eventually give the district to Burke. Cassandra got on my case because she didn't have any districts at all. Hell, when I started actually handing out districts I made my decisions based on how I felt about the character and their people, not the perks themselves. I gave Downtown to Cassandra because it was enjoyable to see black people in the rich bathhouse, whereas I felt the blue collar citizens of Barclay Mills would prosper under Burke, the sometimes mechanic.

The problem is this loop is repeated for every district. Delray Hollow, River Row, and Pointe Verdun are about unlocking your underbosses. This leads to Barclay Mills, Downtown, and Tickfaw Harbor to take down the secondary lieutenants, then Frisco Fields, the French Ward, and Southdowns to finish off members of the Marcano family. You can choose your order and how much of the rackets to tackle, but the loop remains and it can feel like a struggle at times. I'm the kind of player who is all about clearing out zones in open-world games, but I doubt everyone has my stamina or obsessiveness.

Mafia III has some well-executed parts and interesting mechanics, but they're met frequently by more lackluster elements. The feel of the weapons and melee combat is beyond the level of simple competence found in Grand Theft Auto V, but Lincoln himself is fragile and it's far better for players to lean on stealth, not combat. Driving feels great once you switch to simulation mode, but there's no place to keep and lock in your favorite rides, so sometimes you'll find a great vehicle only to lose it in a mission. There's also no fast travel or taxi system in the game, so if you want to get somewhere, you have to drive.

The entire map of New Bordeaux has a distinct feel from district to district. The industrial mire of Tickfaw Harbor stands out from the polished wealth of Downtown or the estates of Frisco Fields. As a person who has family in Louisiana, I'd say that Mafia III captures the feel of the city quite well, even if the roads are much nicer than they are in the modern day. I love driving around the map, just take in the sights.

The problem is the open-world itself is really just a thematic backdrop of the game's narrative, because that's Mafia III's focus. There are shops, restaurants, and bars with actual names, but you can't patronize or interact with them in any real manner. There are NPCs, but they only react in as much as they need to for game systems to operate: shoot a civilian and people will run and perhaps try to call the cops, but eventually they settle down. This is honestly true of most open-world games that take place in cities, but it's notable here in contrast to how the game handles named characters.

All of this is before I get to the technical issues with the game, especially in the PC port. It's worth noting that I've personally run into very few of these issues. A patch on Saturday added 60 fps and unlimited frame rate options to the game and since then I've been playing on 60 fps mode. I've had one crash since then. The game runs well on my system (Core i7, GTX 970, 32 GB of RAM). But the litany of issues reported by others is long: frequent crashes, trouble hitting 60 fps on Core i5 processors, keybinding issues, mission bugs, and a host of general open-world game problems. Hangar 13 built Mafia III from the ground up and I feel that the engine itself needed more time in the oven for optimization.

I can't call Mafia III great. I enjoyed it a great deal and remain satisfied with my chosen ending. The highs of this game are strong, but it doesn't stay there for your entire playtime. This is the kind of game I recommend with caveats. I think you should play it, but you should be prepared for everything I've mentioned prior to this. Given a few patches and maybe a sale, I'd say it's worth picking up. I liked enough of what I saw here to want more from Hangar 13. I want the studio to get sequels and continue to explore the world of organized crime, even if they move from Lincoln Clay and New Bordeaux. With more time, this team could be onto something great.

As it stands, Mafia III is just good.

Lasting appeal
This is a single-player game. Once you've completed the story, all that's left is collectibles and future DLC.

Sound
The classic music fluctuates between meaningful and hilariously funny.

Visuals
Sometimes, Mafia III looks great, other times it looks dire. Definitely needs some polish in this area.

Hangar 13 tells a great story in Mafia III, pitting Lincoln Clay against those who took his family from him. Great characters, solid dialog, and some top-notch motion capture flesh out the world. Unfortunately, the open-world nature of the game kills the story pacing with a repetitive mission loop. Mafia III could've been great, but it's just good.