"Comparisons like this are why we never get open-world GTA-style games anymore": Mafia: The Old Country is the latest new release to be compared to Rockstar's commitment to realism, and fans are getting tired of it

Red Dead Redemption 2 might just be the most realistic video game ever made. Arthur gets dirty if he fights in the mud, staggers about when he drinks too much, and horse balls even shrink in the cold. But does that mean every single game needs all those features, too? A lot of people are saying "no."

Some Mafia: The Old Country players on Twitter have been sharing videos of the features, or lack thereof, available in the game. For example, there's no swimming animation – you just run into an invisible wall if you go too far into the water.

A GTA 6 countdown channel has posted a side-by-side comparison of what chopping wood looks like in Mafia: The Old Country and Red Dead Redemption. It's a 15-year difference, but the older game does indeed have the cleaner animation. But is that a good use of developer time?

Mafia: The Old Country developer Hangar 13 has made four games in the last nine years, whereas Rockstar has only made two, and one of those was an LA Noire VR game, which two other studios helped on.

"Yeah, that's why I buy a Mafia game, to be blown away by the wood cutting animations…," tweets one fan. "Unnecessary stupid details like this in games are one of the reasons why they take so much longer to make now."

One content creator writes, "Comparisons like this are why we never get open-world GTA-style games anymore. Developers are too afraid of dumb comparisons like this to fully invest into one, we lost an entire genre of amazing games because people won't stop comparing them to a billion dollar Rockstar game."

"I'd rather have a fun game with a normal development cycle than a game with retracting horse testicles in cold weather that took ten years to make," writes one person who is also frustrated with how long development takes these days.

Another just thinks it's silly "comparing a $50 budget mafia game by ~300 developers to a trillion dollar thousand devs Rockstar production." It's really not worth competing with Rockstar when it comes to things like this, it just has too much money and manpower to throw at any problem.

Do you prefer games with all these details or ones that just stick to focused gameplay? I'm happy we have both, but I'd hate to see all developers trying to add every feature to everything.

While you're here, check out all the upcoming video games of 2025.