What is it about linear games that makes them feel so hit-and-miss in 2025? That's the question I asked myself when reading up on Mafia: The Old Country. I'll hold my hands up now and admit that I haven't had a chance to play Hangar 13's latest just yet, but the hottest conversation topic on Reddit seems to be its "fully linear experience," in terms of both story and level design.
With zoned missions you can fail by straying too far, no side quests to speak of, and a separate free roam mode to help you gather collectibles at a more languid pace, it seems the new Mafia game – even with rave reviews praising its story and gorgeous graphics – has left its community divided off the back of the series' past open-world flirtations.
I even saw another Redditor say that it "feels like a game from 2012," which brought to mind a number of other newer games that feel somewhat dated by their own Xbox 360-era format. From Evil West to new games such as South of Midnight, linear action-adventures seem to be struggling to hold an audience these days. But I reckon the host of upcoming Xbox Series X games can learn from the most successful of them all.
Covert operations
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's secret to success is no real secret at all. It's a linear storyline, much like all the other games listed above, but it's not a closed-off or funneled experience.
Even if Indiana Jones hadn't factored into it, I'd wager the form, shape, and flow of The Great Circle seems to be the definitive gold-star standard for the modern narrative action-adventure. Comprising three open world maps (and a more linear, quest-focused section toward the end) that cannot be moved between at will, The Great Circle excels at making the player forget how linear it really is.
The combination of open world exploration with smaller side mysteries, collectibles, vendors, and a highly reactive world lends it a similar feeling to the best RPGs without actually being one. Take Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, for example. Made of a complex overworld and smaller, more open zones of exploration, it manages to pull off an incredibly layered narrative experience whilst championing a sense of adventure that many of us have come to expect as a prerequisite.
That wasn't always the case. Sony Santa Monica's 2018 epic God of War is lauded as one of the best PS4 games of its time, the definitive 2010s linear narrative experience that proved developers could tell a tight story, and put exploration restrictions on the player, and still be wildly successful.
But I'd argue that's because, again, it's the staple action-adventure game of its time. I loved playing Evil West on Game Pass last year, revelling in the fun and straightforward experience of simply pressing on through each level without fear of missing stuff. But the further we inch from God of War, the more games of its kind start to feel little out of place – and therein lies the problem.
Getting with the times
A linear story in a deceptively interactive world might just be the best of both worlds...
Times have changed, and so have player expectations. My South of Midnight review is there to reassure you that they're still very much worth playing, but it's unfortunate to see objectively good games being dismissed at face value for being "too 2012." Being old school is not inherently a bad thing – it's just not a very 2025 thing.
Not every modern, linear action-adventure has to be either (or both) to succeed. Rather, a flavor of each will give the kids (aka, us) what they want. Fundamentally, it's a design choice. I do recognize the added pressure Hangar 13 is under, with Mafia historically struggling to find the right open world balance.
It's a different, hyper-linear approach to what Techland is doing in Dying Light: The Beast. The upcoming horror game is still going to be open world, much like its predecessors, but the developer aims to tighten up the narrative by restricting player choice rather than player exploration. A linear story in a deceptively interactive world might just be the best of both worlds, so I'm keen to see the results.
That's probably the biggest lesson I've learned from Mafia: The Old Country's super strict linearity. Being too stripped back risks games feeling empty in comparison to the likes of Avowed, Death Stranding 2, or Assassin's Creed Shadows, since RPGs and open world games are pretty much everywhere at the moment. Games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle have set the stylistic tone for action-adventures going forward, and I expect we'll be seeing more developers taking a leaf out of Indy's adventuring manuals very, very soon.
With so many upcoming RPGs now in the works, we'll be eatin' good in 2025
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