You are a black man living in New Bordeaux, Louisiana in the 1960s. You just returned from serving a tour in Vietnam. You were an orphan who thought fighting in Vietnam would help you make your mark on this world. You are Lincoln Clay.
The game begins with Lincoln Clay sat on a bench waiting for your adopted brother, Ellis, to pick Clay in his own beautiful sleek black sports car.
On the way home, Clay is brought up to speed on what's been going on quickly and ineffectively before being dusted off with Clay essentially saying he wants to get settled back in before discussing much else.
Clay arrives to a surprise welcome home party with the night ending with Clay sleeping in the basement. When Clay wakes up, he finds his adoptive father Sammy and Ellis arguing about a feud with the Haitians.
Clay offers help, but Sammy instructs him to go with Father James, a man who has known Clay all his life, to go help serve food to the needy. As Clay serves the food, Haitians storm the small restaurant and attempt to kill Clay.
Clay brutally incapacitates them and returns to Sammy. This time, Clay does not offer help. He demands it. He explains to Clay that Haitians have been interfering with his payments to Don Sal Marcano, the man running New Bordeaux, albeit unofficially. As per common knowledge, if the Don doesn't get paid, there are problems. Sammy has missed three months worth of payments.
Once Clay eliminates the Haitians causing trouble, Don Marcano hires Clay and his son, Giorgi, for a job in which they steal millions from a federal bank. Despite running into a few problems, the job is successful and everyone gets about a million in their cut.
While everyone is busy celebrating, Don Marcano and his son enter with some of their men and kill everyone; everyone except Clay.
Once he recuperates from the bullet to the head, Clay calls upon an old friend that he served with in Vietnam, a CIA Agent named Donovan, who helps Clay by gathering intel on Don Marcano's criminal empire.
And so begins the story of Mafia 3 with you as Lincoln Clay taking down an entire criminal empire from the bottom up as an act of revenge. Don Marcano took everything from you.
Now it's your turn to take everything from Don Marcano.
Story
The story is straightforward and set from the prologue. The whole game is about Lincoln Clay tearing down Don Marcano's criminal empire by taking over his areas of influence and sources of revenue and killing any one in your way.
There is no depth to the story itself. It is what it is.
The soul of the game comes from the characters and the setting. Most of the main characters are three dimensional and sound, look, and feel completely real because they all are made of flaws and their strengths support those flaws.
Characters
Nobody is a "good guy" but they all have their reasons.
Lincoln Clay's closest friends and family were killed by Don Marcano and now Lincoln wants to destroy Marcano. His want for revenge is clear cut.
Don Marcano on the other hand, is attempting to turn legitimate by using his criminal enterprises to fund the building of a casino.
In an interesting way, Lincoln and his associates are driven by rage and revenge while Marcano is focused on becoming legitimate. The bad is driving the good and wanting to be good is driving the bad.
Lincoln Clay is a Vietnam veteran that displayed an amazing prowess on the battlefield but this is forgotten in Mafia 3. Donovan brings it up from time to time through one liners and tiny anecdotes. It is not an element that's explored. If anything, all it does is explain why Lincoln is so formidable.
To most people, he's just a black man with a gun. Oddly enough, his past with war doesn't ever trouble him. He is driven by rage and takes down any obstacles presented to him by taking everything to a new level. When Father James says to him to just kill Marcano and be done with it, Clay responds that he doesn't want to just kill him; he wants him to feel what it's like when everything is taken from him.
Donovan is a CIA agent that takes on a partner-in-crime role by giving you intel on how to get to Lincoln's enemies but he's not just a voice in your ear or a hand giving you a folder. He realizes the purge of New Bordeaux that needs to take place. He helps you enthusiastically on the field sometimes and in flash forwards where he is in a court hearing, he continues to passionately defend your actions.
Your lieutenants are almost caricatures but not quite. Vito Scaletta, the protagonist of Mafia 2, begins as the generic Italian New Yorker (or Empire Bay as Mafia 2 called it) gangster who knows rackets inside and out. It isn't until after getting to know him better and doing some assassination missions for him when you realize that after being ousted from Empire Bay, he was sent to New Bordeaux to still be useful only to be ousted again by Marcano in an attempt to kill him.
Cassandra is a black woman living in the poorer parts of New Bordeaux that sells voodoo dolls along with other little religious memorabilia. However, she reveals that she doesn't believe in any of that. Instead, she believes she is selling hope to people who are desperate for it and her criminal efforts are focused on empowering and uniting the black community against racism.
Thomas Burke is an angry Irish drunk who's most memorable trait seems to be pissing his pants when you first meet him after the events of the introduction. Later on though, he is revealed to be a father struggling with grief and an old fashioned Catholic struggling to understand or accept his daughter's sexual orientation. While Clay was recuperating, Burke had his leg smashed and his turf taken by one of Marcano's men, which drove Burke further into alcohol as if losing his son wasn't enough.
There are more to these characters and it's great to see a new side to them once in awhile in cutscenes. Unfortunately, the depth to these characters is shown far too little. Everything mentioned here is shown in their own personal cutscenes in between their own personal missions. These cutscenes are sometimes optional and hidden between generic missions. For example, you have to steal a truck full of weapons for Cassandra to reveal the small quip regarding hope for her community.
It is unfortunate as well that unless you do these side missions, they lose any and all depth these characters have along with any potential sympathy from players. If you completely bypass the side quests, you also miss out on some side characters that give more insight into the world of Mafia 3 as well as information on your lieutenants. This does become a reality for many players though and there is no one to blame but the game itself. Wanting to learn more about these characters is completely sabotaged by the copy/paste missions they give you. Learn about Cassandra? Go steal a truck. Learn about Burke? Go steal these three exact cars.
In the Mafia 3 world, they are supposed to be serving you by essentially backing you up in the fight against Don Marcano. However the reality of it is that you serve them more than they serve you. They give you money and some perks but most of the game is essentially you taking territories (on your own) and handing it down to one of them at a time while listening to them complain.
Setting
The game takes place in 1960s New Bordeaux, which is modeled after New Orleans. The 60s were a difficult time with the Vietnam war, the riots, the protests, the assassinations, and the sheer racism. In Mafia 3, you don't experience any of it but the racism. The racism ranges from subtle to blatant and when it's blatant, they do not hold back.
The setting and story are one of the most effective combinations I've seen in a long time in an open world game. If it were a white man taking down a criminal empire, you could have racism in the story but it wouldn't be much besides be background noise. However, since you play as a black man, the racism directly affects you. There are places where you cannot enter because of signs that say "No colored allowed".
Depending on where you are, the police will react differently. In a nicer, richer, whiter neighborhood, police are numerous and quick to respond rather than if you're in the Hollows, a poorer neighborhood, police are scarce and if you commit a crime, the police operator will respond nonchalantly with something like "If you feel like checking it out, go ahead."
In other games where you are taunted by enemies, in this one, they taunt you knowing full well the color of your skin and it really gets to you sometimes.
Gameplay
As for the gameplay, Mafia 3 is simple and repetitive.
You speak to an informant, they tell you how to cause enough damage to lure the racket leader out, and then you take the racket and give it to one of your people. But in a game about the mafia, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Mafia 3 tells you how it's going to be once the game truly starts.
I don't have a problem with it. I expect a game called Mafia 3 to be able to shoot up the mafia and to be involved with the process of organized crime in some shape or form. The game delivers on that front. It does get repetitive but there is a satisfaction in doing it repeatedly. As you move up the ladder of Marcano's associates, it gets more exciting and the missions become a little more complicated. In the beginning it might be a simple car chase but towards the end, you're sinking a ferry just to get to someone.
As you take over districts and hand them off to your people, you also get rewards. For example, if you raise Vito's earn level to a certain amount, he gives you a perk where you can call for a hit squad to help you in a firefight. Other rewards can include, guns, car upgrades and personal upgrades.
However handing off districts can affect lieutenants. Each district has a few rackets. As you take over the rackets, you can call one of your three lieutenants to take care of it however, once the entire district is yours, you are forced to give it to one person and that one person then takes over all the rackets.
For example, if Racket A is controlled by person 1, B is controlled by person 2, and C is controlled by person 3 and you decide to give the district to person 1, person one will take Racket A, B, and C. This doesn't go unnoticed. In the sit down after every district taken, everyone will remind you of your actions.
"You asked me to take care of this racket but you gave the district to this other guy!"
I made this mistake the first time. If you continue to leave out a lieutenant, they do get aggravated and there are consequences. However, if you feel you want one lieutenant’s perks and rewards rather than another, then perhaps handing everything over to one person is in your favor.
The game is pretty fluid and can feel a little difficult to get used to at first. The driving feels like Grand Theft Auto IV to my liking. You can feel the weight of the cars but it's still easy to handle and you can drift with ease. This only gets easier with rewards that improve your car’s handling, acceleration and defense.
The movement of a character in third person has been perfected a long time ago and so running around as Lincoln Clay is of no concern. In a way, you can feel his lumbering human hulk body as you run.
The shooting is a little too smooth in where you can easily zip the aiming reticle past your enemy but with time, this isn't a problem. If you don't get used to it, there are aim assist options.
The game allows you to complete missions stealthily or as a full frontal assault.
Through the stealthy approach, you basically become Arkham's Batman. While you are crouching you are inaudible and there is something called Intel vision. If you have hacked into junction boxes, the intel vision allows you to see enemy outlines through walls. Without it, you will only temporarily see those you have seen when they leave your line of sight or those that are actively speaking.
The Intel vision is basically detective vision if you are familiar with the Batman Arkham games in which the screen turns dark and enemies and objects of importance are outlined for you. However, unlike detective vision, intel vision is deactivated as soon as you make a move which means you cannot keep it on while traversing an area.
I took damage easily so I always did my best to keep the stealth approach but for someone as unlucky as me, there would be times where an enemy alerted everyone else and called for reinforcements so a full frontal assault was my only choice. The third person shooting is simple but the executions are brutal.
There are stealth executions where you take out your enemy silently and then there are executions that are activated when the enemy is alerted to your presence. The latter executions are absolutely brutal and are an absolute joy to activate.
If anything, it's one of the biggest reasons as to why I came back to the game. The executions are over the top ridiculous and fun. For instance, if you are not equipped with a weapon, Lincoln will automatically take a knife and stab a man repeatedly in the face. If you are equipped with a shotgun, you might shove an enemy to the ground and unload on his face.
The executions are limited though and about an hour into the game, you can be confident you've seen them all. There are knife executions, pistol executions and two handed weapon executions.
In between the action, there is a lot of driving. Luckily, the driving feels fine and if you're a fan of the era, then you will absolutely love the radio. There are only three stations but between those three there are an insane amount of timeless classics by James Brown, The Four Tops, Jimi Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones. There is no fast travel which means you'll be relying on driving as your primary means for transportation. A totally random side note but nice little detail is that if you are underground, the radio gets fuzzy and the volume lowers.
If you did not like GTA IV's driving or do not like the music of the 60s, do not expect to be enjoying the game outside the action.
Besides fast travel, the game suffers from the age old attempt in extending gameplay through collectibles. You can pick up Playboy magazines, records, communist propaganda posters and Hot Rod magazines, and Vargas paintings. They're nice to pick up to get a better sense of the time period like Playboy magazines offering interviews with The Beatles and Stanley Kubrick but they don't do anything else besides have information value.
Those are the useless collectibles but there are also useful collectibles called modules, which are scattered throughout the city and you’ll need three to hack into junction boxes. As you wiretap more and more junction boxes, these little dots keep pop up all over the map and become an unnecessary grief to the perfectionist player.
You can skip wiretapping the junction boxes but without them, you can't hire racket leaders for yourself or see enemies through the wall with intel vision.
The map screen is also sometimes counter intuitive with the collectibles by telling you where they are but never the height of them. You can set a marker so you can drive to it, but some collectibles are underground and force you to find a way to go downstairs. Others are on top of buildings.
Rather than let them pile up, I started the game collecting them each time I wiretapped a junction box which of course becomes a hassle and drained all the fun from the game. This game then becomes a collect-them-all adventure rather than an adrenaline filled third person action game.
All in all, the collectibles like the Playboy magazines, records, and posters are a nice touch, but they would better if they were in a gallery format where you unlock them as you progress through the game rather than having to find them. All games would benefit from this.
Collectibles like these are lazy ways of extending the gameplay. They don't even serve the purpose to act as a way to view more of the world in Mafia 3 because you are already driving mission to mission so the lack of fast travel is already forcing you to do that.
If you completely bypass the collectibles, everything goes a lot faster and you can control a whole district in about 45 minutes.
The world of Mafia 3 is a beautifully constructed one but an empty one. There isn't anything to do besides the objectives, side missions or collectibles.
In Mafia 3, you have a safe and a wallet. As you collect money, it goes into your wallet and it is up to you to drive to your safe house and deposit it in your safe. If you die, half of whatever is in your wallet disappears whereas what ever is in your safe, is...well, safe.
This system is pointless when you earn a reward in which you can call someone to come pick up your cash and deposit it for you. It just becomes a hinderance.
As you take over, you give rackets and districts to your lieutenants and in return they give you a portion of their earnings. At first, they become the only places and people you will revisit time and time again, but with the reward that I just mentioned, someone will go and pick up that money for you as well and deposit it for you.
So besides going to back to your people to collect money or to start a mission, there isn't much that is revisited in Mafia 3.
It’s a safe assumption that once you unlock the Consigliere perk (woman who picks up money for you) with the exception of characters with missions, you’ll probably never revisit anything ever again.
As far as visuals go, when it isn't bugging out in some shape or form, New Bordeaux is actually a beautiful place: the sun reflecting on the river, the dampness of the mud in the swamp, the shine of a wet street but most importantly, the people of Mafia 3 look real. They aren't these perfect generic shapes of men and women.
They look like people you can encounter on the street today. Poorly shaven, acne scars, asymmetrical heads and faces. They're not these perfect looking humans and it humanizes the story even more. NPCs on the other hand, look generic. There is little to no variation in enemies or in civilians. I feel it works here because dehumanizing enemies makes Lincoln look more like a killing machine and as for civilians out on the street, it doesn't really matter what they look like when you're speeding at 100mph to get to your next objective.
SUMMARY
In summation, there isn't really much to say about this game. At its core, it's a pretty generic third person action shooter that doesn't do much to set itself apart. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The guns feel like what they should, the shooting feels good, and the controls are responsive but besides the melee executions, there isn't much to set itself apart.
The game truly shines in its writing and voice acting. Mafia 3 comes to life in its cutscenes. I feel as if all their storytelling choices paid off such as their choice of a black protagonist and the underlying themes of racism and their choice to view the mafia from the outside rather than being in the inside.
The gameplay is simple and repetitive but when the game tells you exactly what is going to happen at the end of the introduction, I don't feel cheated.
That being said though, the game could have done so much more with everything. The city is beautifully constructed...but there's literally nothing to do.
The characters could have had more personalized missions rather than repeated generic theft missions.
The missions could have had more depth and meaning to them rather than making them all copy paste missions.
The game looks beautiful but there are visual errors that happen from time to time and when they do happen, they’re rarely insignificant.
All in all, the game is different in terms of storytelling and that alone was worth it for me. The game may have been cut and paste but the story and its characters were all risks and those risks paid off.
If this was Hangar 13’s debut, I’m excited for their future.
All that being said, I’d give Mafia 3 an 8…out of 10.