The official Mafia: The Old Country gameplay footage has been released and already causes quite a stir: Within the first three minutes, stutters have been noticed, mainly during Enzo’s driving sequences. These are no slight hiccups but apparent frame pacing issues causing more than a few gamers to raise their eyebrows.
The footage is clipped and trimmed to show only the “best” parts, yet there are stutters. Really, not the best first impression to be making. A lot of people have already gone on about this being a symptom familiar to a lot of Unreal Engine 5 games upon fast traversing (read: driving). Why does every UE5 game with cars seem like it is working against itself trying to load environ fast?
The thing, the other side, some have therefore refused to throw the game out of the window just yet. Some feel that it’s not that bad and that maybe the hiccups shall be patched in time. On the other hand, certain people are sharpening their pitchforks already.
Player @YC_0015 shrugged it off: “There are a few stutters but ain’t that big of a deal or nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a bit more polish,” while @PlayaTaylor went off calling those driving mechanics “outdated” and the whole engine a “downgrade.” Ouch.
And then it gets messy, UE5 versus the Decima engine. Some gamers are straight up saying, “God I hate Unreal Engine 5,” and then others almost defend Decima like it’s holy gaming water. @notConnorD69 said: “We need all games made in the Decima engine!!” To which @RevenantDR_ fired back: “Decima is trash for slop boring games.” Yeah, so the argument is actually spicy.
Besides performance issues, a few are just happy about a new Mafia single-player coming along. As expressed by @Jimmy_Black73: “I’m just hoping the performance would be decent at launch. Besides that, it’s good to have a single-player Mafia game to run through.”
Here come the realism arguments. @cringe_npc said, “If this is supposed to be historically accurate, then why are the cars handling like rally racers?” To which @DooleyHendrix responded, “The fastest car in the 1890s was literally 30mph. If that level of realism is what you’re looking for… you might want this game to fail.”
And that’s perhaps the major thing: The reveal definitely generated waves. Whether that turns out to be to Mafia: The Old Country’s benefit or detriment remains a matter of debate. Some gamers are now entertained by the prospect of seeing the devs polish the game through on TV; others want to rubberneck at the crowning disappointment.
One thing’s for sure: Should a finished build ever hit the public with stutters still present, the internet would wash it clean. Hopefully, the dev team will pull miracles and manage to smoothen everything out, or we might just have one more thing on our plate for how to deal with another stripped-back UE5 release.
Until then, the debate is still raging on: UE5 stans versus haters, realism purists versus gameplay-first stars, and everyone else in between. Welcome to modern gaming discourse, where not one trailer is spared by the thousand nitpickers.
Actually, that’s kind of fun in itself: The chaos, the hot takes, the overreactions; that, in itself, is the whole cruise. So buckle up because Mafia: The Old Country’s road to release is bound to be bumpy. Literally.
