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Mafia: The Old Country debuts to the second-best reviews in the series, but has been beaten in Steam player count by a version of every past entry so far
Mafia: The Old Country has launched to the second best Metacritic score for the series and a "Very Positive" rating on Steam, but its launch hasn't quite reached the numbers of previous entries on Steam.
Hangar 13 made headlines when it was revealed that Mafia: The Old Country would be $50 at launch, with the studio taking the stance that it's a "focused" and "linear" game as the devs say the full-blown open-world didn't really fit the series, and that a narrative-driven experience was the way forward. The devs say as much in a message released around launch, explaining that "we believe there's still a meaningful place for these types of games in our industry" and that the response to Mafia: Definitive Edition reminded them of this.
And it looks like it's paid off somewhat, as Mafia: The Old Country has launched as the second-best reviewed game in the series on Metacritic (behind Mafia: Definitive Edition) and a "Very Positive" rating on Steam. However, it's not quite the highest in terms of player count on PC.
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Looking at SteamDB, Mafia: The Old Country peaked at 27,585 players shortly after it was released, with around 19,000 players online right now. Now obviously, this number is nothing to sneeze at, and is pretty impressive overall. Plus, with it releasing on a Thursday, there's always the chance for a weekend spike.
But compared to the rest of the series, numbers are down somewhat. It falls just short of Mafia 2's 29,474 peak in 2010 (seemingly its demo, to be exact, since the full game didn't hit Steam until 2011), Mafia: Definitive Edition's 36,679 player peak in 2020, and Mafia 3's 47,822 player peak when it released back in 2016.
However, it has beaten out the original Mafia (which, granted, released before Steam existed), which peaked at 9,112 players in 2022 when it was made free, and the Definitive Edition of Mafia 2 which only hit 6,162 players in 2020. But even so, it's still undoubtedly a great start for The Old Country, proving that even with nine-years off, the series still has a loyal fanbase.
Scott has been freelancing for over three years across a number of different gaming publications, first appearing on GamesRadar+ in 2024. He has also written for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, VG247, Play, TechRadar, and others. He's typically rambling about Metal Gear Solid, God Hand, or any other PS2-era titles that rarely (if ever) get sequels.
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