Mafia: The Old Country: release date, trailers, gameplay, and more

By Jesse Lennox Updated May 8, 2025

In the era of Grand Theft Auto clones, one series managed to stand out by offering a unique setting and a compelling crime drama. Mafia gave us a deep dive into the world of organized crime in various time periods across American history, with rich open worlds to explore and plenty to do and see. Now, an upcoming video game is reviving the series as a prequel to them all. It’s called Mafia: The Old Country and it will show us the underworld in a completely new setting, somewhat like Ghost of Yotei. We managed to smuggle out all the information there is about this upcoming PS5 game.

Mafia: The Old Country is also on our lists of upcoming Xbox Series X games and upcoming PC games, but you won’t find it on the list of upcoming Switch 2 games.

Mafia: The Old Country‘s release date of August 8 was revealed in a new trailer at PAX. Not only that, but we learned this will also be a budget release and only cost $50 for the standard edition.

Mafia: The Old Country is a current-gen-only title. That means it will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Last-gen consoles and the Switch will sadly not be supported. There is a possibility it will later come to the Switch 2, but we will have to wait and see.

The initial teaser trailer for Mafia: The Old Country came during Opening Night Live in 2024 and was purely cinematic. It shows us the game’s new setting of 1900s Sicily, though it doesn’t give us a clear look at much aside from the interior of a large villa and one vista. We see a knife, shotgun, wine, and other iconic mafia items.

The entire trailer is narrated by an unknown speaker talking about how the mob is a brotherhood where trust is paramount. It concludes by asking another unknown character if they are ready to commit themselves to the family. We suspect this will be our protagonist joining the mafia to kick off the game. We do know that it is intended to focus on the origins of the mafia itself

It wasn’t until The Game Awards 2024 that Mafia: The Old Country showed up with a new Story Teaser Trailer. We learned that the game will center around a character named Enzo who has just joined the Torrisi mafia as a new recruit and is looking to prove himself as a worthy family man. Sadly, the “story teaser” is otherwise incredibly light on any story details.

The Initiation Trailer is a bit longer, but doesn’t add much of substance to dissect in terms of story. It mainly details Enzo taking his oath to the family while showing small segments of gameplay and cutscene moments with no context.

Finally, after PAX East in May 2025, we got some deeper details about the plot of Mafia: The Old Country. Enzo’s main reason for joining the Torrisi family is to “become a man of honor” after an abusive childhood working in a sulfur mine as an orphan. To Enzo, joining the family is a way to be accepted and find purpose in his life. Narrative will be a much bigger focus in this game, which has influenced the gameplay in a major way. The goal is, as it always has been, to give the player an authentic mob story.

Check out the entire developer presentation to get into the team’s head about how they went about creating an authentic mafia experience in this specific time and place.

While prior games have always been open-world games, Mafia: The Old Country might be taking a different approach. According to the game’s website, “In Mafia: The Old Country, we’re going back to the roots of what fans love about the franchise, crafting a deep, linear narrative with that classic mob movie feeling, visiting a stunning new setting, and delivering it all in a tight, focused package perfect for fans of immersive experiences.”

Our suspicions turned out to be true, as Mafia: The Old Country will not be an open world game like its predecessors. Instead, Hanger 13 and 2K are focusing on the story and characters over adding a ton of extra activities and distractions. “We think there’s a large audience for compelling stories that don’t require massive time commitments,” said 2K president David Ismailer. “We’re excited to offer a game like Mafia: The Old Country in our portfolio, and to provide a linear highly-polished narrative experience that can easily complement the other more persistent games our players also love and engage with on a more consistent basis.”

So, if you were excited to roam around Sicily freely, you sadly won’t have that option. That said, there are optional things to observe and small detours you can take within that linear progression.

From the official gameplay trailer, we see a bit of what we can look forward to.

Besides being visually stunning, the more focused direction is clear. Outdoor areas are big, but there are a lot of tighter spaces.

Stealth is shown off first, with silent takedowns using your hands or a knife, but transitions right into open combat. Besides just shooting, knives can be thrown, and environmental hazards can be used, like shooting a lantern to cause a fire. Stealth is more important here since ammo will be scarce. Combined with the primitive weaponry and how deadly enemies can be, combat feels more tactical and dangerous.

We did get some trauma flashbacks seeing racing again, but hopefully it isn’t as brutal as the first game.

The trailer ends with a glimpse of the unique fighting mode for one-on-one knife fights for special boss battles.. We also learned that you can choose from multiple knives with different appearances and stats and buffs.

Now that GTA 6 is delayed to 2026, there’s a lot more time to spend with Mafia: The Old Country on release. If you want to pay your dues to the family early and preorder, you have two options to pick from, and both are probably cheaper than you think.

Standard Edition – $50

Deluxe Edition – $60