Mafia 3: 8 Big Things It Got Wrong

The soundtrack might be swinging, but not everything is rosy in New Bordeaux.

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Since its release, Mafia 3 has topped the gaming sales charts and has gained a following of dedicated fans, and it’s easy to see why:

The compelling story, interesting characters, unique setting, historically-accurate social tensions and the killer soundtrack all help it stand out from its competitors in the crowded third-person sandbox genre.

Hanger 13 - the fairly inexperienced studio behind the game - have been ambitious with many aspects of this newest entry in the beloved series; trying to make it as different as possible when compared to a landmark franchise such as Grand Theft Auto.

However, when trying to be this ambitious, there’s always a chance certain elements will fall short of the mark. Or to put it another way, there’s always the risk that in striving to nail newer, more innovative game mechanics, the more basic parts can get overlooked.

Unfortunately, here are the things that Mafia 3 got wrong.

8. Frustrating Environment Design

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The city of New Bordeaux, based off the real-life city of New Orleans, is simply incredible. The detail that has gone into the different neighbourhoods is awe-inspiring, and really helps Mafia 3 stand out from its rivals.

Sadly, travelling around this beautiful city doesn’t always go smoothly.

There are a lot of areas with fences, walls with only one or two entrances, meaning if you go quite far in - usually when looking for collectibles - you have to run all the way back to a particular entrance to get back out. The map doesn’t show many of these barriers either, meaning you can run towards a section of an area thinking it’s open-ended, only to find a wall in the way with no door.

This wouldn’t be as annoying if you were able to just jump over fences, but Lincoln has a hard time climbing over a lot of ledges and walls that you would otherwise assume he should get over.

Lincoln’s climbing truly becomes rage-inducing when you end up in water. If you crash your boat or just jump in the water for a shortcut, you can often end up having to swim for ages just to get back onto land, thanks to only a couple of specific ledge-heights being the ones you can pull yourself onto.

Contributor
Contributor

Been gaming since the Megadrive. Loves Batman, Futurama and Blackburn Rovers. Mild obsession with collecting steelbooks.