Mafia Definitive Edition can’t come soon enough, and luckily the gameplay trailer seemed to pack enough information into it to make it worthwhile. The trailer is commentated by Hanger 13’s chief creative officer, Haden Blackman as he tells us what they have done to the game to bring it to the current generation of consoles. They’ve remade the game from the ground up on their proprietary game engine, but added new audio and rendering features as well as a completely new lighting system.
Taking full advantage of the technical advancements, they’re using motion capture and facial likeness technology to redo the cinematics and they’ve added new scenes to further its story and characters. They’ve also reworked some areas of the game to streamline the flow of the city, while still staying true to the original. After this point of the video we’re finally given what we’ve came here for, the gameplay.
The gameplay starts off in the mission called “A Trip to the Country”, where Tommy and Paulie head to a farm and meet Sam with their bootlegged whiskey. The game looks really good right off the bat. The rainy weather conditions in conjunction with the sound and the way they’ve created the look of the farm is just wicked to look at. It looks like the setup to a horror movie. As you search the farm you’re walked up on by some border patrol officers and things go array.
At this point we get to see the gunplay mechanics, and they look really interesting. There’s a cover system as usual but the thing that stuck out to me was that guns had dramatized bullet trails. When you or an NPC would shoot, you could see a white trail following the bullet, which looked really cool. Shotguns had a peppered trail, while the tommy guns had a quick trail that you could watch as the NPCs pulled their gun back and forth.
More fighting ensues, creating a climactic battle that culminates into a chase sequence. This chase section of the mission allows you to fire a tommy gun out of the back of a packed bootlegging truck. The lighting and action on the screen looks really good here, and it’s light- years ahead of Mafia 3, with the polish that has been applied to it. The music helps to build the action, while the acting too is well done.
The only thing I noticed that put a damper on my viewing, was that the AI for the NPCs seemed dumb. Hopefully this isn’t the case or maybe they just haven’t fully finished the AI, but it just seemed like a letdown. That aspect did make the game feel like it was using an outdated game engine. Games have come further in its use of AI in the last few years since Mafia 3, so I just expected more here. There was also a sound mixing issue that can be heard at the end of the trailer where one character’s voice just sounds so much louder than the others.
With all of that said, I’m still very excited to see some more of the gameplay ahead of its launch day. Maybe some open world free roaming, or possibly some of the vehicle driving sequences. I really liked that the cars felt weighty when you drove them in Mafia 2, so I’m hoping for a return to that style. I know some people had gripes with that, but it just made sense to me, because in that period of time cars were just built with heavier metals. Mafia Definitive Edition will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on September 25th.
What do you think? Are you excited about the new Mafia remake, or do you think it’s going to have issues like Mafia 3? Let us know in the comment section below or hit us up on Twitter!
