YMMV / Mafia III

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • An early one comes up in-universe with Lincoln Clay thinking of his adoptive father Sammie as a shrewd businessman, honorable man, and pillar of the community. Cassandra, by contrast, considers him a weak brown-noser who was nothing more than Sal Marcano's puppet.
  • Lincoln himself is likely meant to be an ambiguously characterised sort. We know he's an Anti-Hero, but just what kind of Anti-Hero? Just how bad of a person is Lincoln, and is it entirely his own fault that he is that way?
  • Cassandra is a Base-Breaking Character with some believing she's right to take her militant stand against racism in New Bourdeaux. Others believe she's a Knight Templar and short-sighted fool only capable of Attack! Attack! Attack!. Her ending implies the latter.
  • Is Donovan helping Lincoln because they're Sworn Brothers or because of his quest to find Jack Kennedy's killer? Also, did Donovan find out that Sal Marcano killed JFK with the government's help before or after he helped Lincoln kill Sal? While unlikely, is he also just Ax-Crazy and a Conspiracy Theorist who came up with this on his own?
    • Further to that point: is John after Kennedy's killers entirely out of patriotism like he says or is there an unmentioned racial tinge with Donovan (an Irish name) doing this specifically because they killed the first Irish-American president?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The Mafia actually had a major presence in New Orleans from the 19th century to 1993. It reached its heyday under Carlos Marcello (the inspiration for Sal Marcano). While not having had as big a media presence as the New York Crime families, it was one of the largest and most powerful mafia families in the world with over 300 made men and 3,000 criminal associates. Sal Marcano's ridiculously large organization is actually historically accurate.
  • Black Mobs like Sammy's actually did exist. After WW2, many black communities had individuals consolidate control over the crime going on in their neighborhoods and worked to keep out other gangs. They invested heavily in local businesses and had "complicated" relationships with The Mafia. Famously, fixed lotteries like the primary source of income Sammy had were a RL thing too.
  • The Klan actually has a large presence in Louisiana despite the state's large Catholic population. Indeed, Grand Wizard David Duke would form his branch and base it there (though admittedly, that was in the 1970s rather than the Sixties). So, the Southern Union is not remotely out of place.
  • "Sundown Towns" where black folk would be assaulted and killed come nightfall for no other crime than being black were a real phenomenon. It became a race against time as they would be subject to violence the moment that it was night. Many of these towns' violence were enforced by local law enforcement. Sheriff Beaumont is, horrifyingly, Truth in Television.
• Anticlimax Boss: For as sinister and violent of an outside force as Santangelo is made out to be when he meets with Sal, he rolls up in an ordinary car just like any other hitman you'd encounter on a Trafficking mission, and can be disposed of without Lincoln breaking much of a sweat.
• Arc Fatigue: A major complaint about the game is that while the writing and plot is generally accepted as solid, it is bogged down by the fact that you spend most of the game unlocking territories and doing the same activities in order to progress.
• Awesome Music: The soundtrack is based on 60s blues, and manages to capture the era and setting perfectly. The soundtrack also features carefully curated classics from the era, increasing the awesomeness.
  • The jangly first song that plays in the game proper (excluding cutscenes), "Psychotic Reaction" by Count Five, provides a great score for Lincoln and Giorgi blasting their way out of the Federal Reserve.
  • Also during the Federal Reserve heist is "Born To Be Wild" during the boat chase at the end, and "I Fought The Law" when the crew finally escape the police.
  • "Green River" plays while you hunt Uncle Lou dead after destroying his riverboat. "Fortunate Son" also plays at the credits of the game, when John Donovan shoots dead the Lousiana State Governor after Donovan reveals he was a mastermind behind JFK's assassination.
  • Stones Unturned has some great songs at pivotal moments, like "Wild Thing" during the turret shoot-out and "Eve of Destruction" as Lincoln and Donovan try to shepherd the nuke back into American hands.
  • During the finale, as Lincoln drives to Marcano's casino, Mourning Ritual's slower, haunting cover of "Bad Moon Rising" plays, making it perfectly clear that this is the end of the line.
  • The DLC trailers make excellent use of more obscure songs, like Parish Hall's "Skid Row Runner" and Kip Tyler's "She's My Witch".
  • The opening notes of "All Along the Watchtower" when the start menu first comes up really drives home that this game takes place in the 1960s™
• Broken Base:
  • Immediately after the announcement, fan opinion was divided about the protagonist and the setting. While some see it as an interesting new take, with potential especially lying in playing as a black man during one of the most racially tense periods in American history, others think it is too much of a change of genre and want the classical Mafia setting back.
  • Others are divided whether the game makes proper use of its setting (They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot) given the Civil Rights Era is only a backdrop between Lincoln Clay's Punisher-esque revenge plot crossed with criminal takeover.
  • While the more sandbox take of this particular installment is widely applauded, many people either feel that it isn't used to its full potential, as you can't buy anything from stores or do side activities (it was justified for its defenders because Lincoln and co works underground), or that the linear elements of the previous games suit the series better.
• Catharsis Factor: Since this is a game where you fight virulently racist assholes in addition to the standard "gangster" enemies, a lot of people are going to be very satisfied.
  • Taking down the openly racist Neo-Confederate Dixie Mob and putting down any remainder encountered is exhilarating for many players.
  • Many people take the opportunity at the Southern Union rally to not only kill Duvall and the armed guards, but everybody wearing a white robe.
  • A small example, but getting to walk into stores and bars with "No Coloreds Allowed" signs and knock out the owner when they call Lincon "Boy" is pretty satisfying.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: A big complaint about the game is that you can more or less win the game by hiding and whistling for guards to come to Lincoln. It becomes even easier once you get silenced weapons. The poor A.I. of the guards and the fact they don't chase you means that it's a lot easier than it should be.
• Complete Monster: Mafia III has, among its surplus of Politically Incorrect Villains, a pair of Human Traffickers; a Dirty Cop; and the current head of a Breeding Cult:
  • Ritchie Doucet, the leader of the Dixie Mob, is first shown participating in the betrayal and destruction of the Black Mob, where he personally stabs Ellis, Lincoln Clay's adoptive younger brother, to death. As a reward for his help, Doucet is given control over Delray Hollow by Sal Marcano, and starts running heroin and prostitution rackets. His prostitution racket is revealed to be comprised of Black women whom he's had abducted, addicted to heroin, then forced into sexual slavery to service White patrons.
  • Remy Duvall is a Blue Blood of New Bordeaux and the seemingly friendly and simple-minded host of the widely popular radio show "Native Son", promoting White values. In truth, Duvall is the ferocious leader of the Southern Union and an ardent White supremacist, allied with the Marcano crime family. Duvall orders Blacks beaten and killed and assists the Marcanos in their PCP operation. Duvall secretly sells Blacks into slavery to rich Whites, a crime that disgusts and horrifies even other bandits. After Lincoln Clay destroys his operations, Duvall rallies his followers with the intention of sending Lincoln and his allies to Delray Hollow, intending to then burn it down completely, not caring about the countless deaths among innocent "White" citizens. Claiming to love and protect his city, but willing to harm and even kill White Christians if it benefits him, Duvall takes racism to horrific levels.
  • Faster, Baby! DLC: Sheriff Walter "Slim" Beaumont, the vicious, ruthless, and racist sheriff of Sinclair Parish who seeks to maintain power and to make sure the town has an all-White influence, does so by murdering Black citizens after sundown. Beaumont also works with the Southern Union, letting them loose on Sinclair Parish, using additional murder and intimidation to keep its citizens in check. When a movement starts to expose his crimes and bring him to justice, he murders Ezekiel Dandridge, and steals the written testimonies gathered against him. By the time Lincoln and Roxy arrive in Sinclair Parish, Beaumont is already targeting the citizens that are testifying against him. When Lincoln and Roxy put a stop to his plans, he has Lincoln abducted and prepares to leave him to the Southern Union, taking the time to gloat to him.
  • Sign of the Times DLC: Bonnie Harless, the current leader of the Ensanglante, is a direct descendant of the infamously racist General Braxton Harless, the founder and original leader of the cult. Bonnie, inspired by Braxton's words and teachings, decided to resurrect the cult of her own doing in the present. To this end, she ended up manipulating dozens if not hundreds of struggling White folk into becoming addicted to drugs she distributes and effectively brainwashing them into her minions, all under the guise of philanthropy and helping them cope with their problems. Once officially inducted into her movement, Bonnie has them kill Blacks and other "impure" people by torturing them to death in locations where suffering has occurred. When confronted directly by Lincoln Clay on the verge of death, Bonnie continues to defy her foe to the end, stating that New Bordeaux would burn without her movement and its influence.
• Contested Sequel: Easily the most controversial game of the entire series. Supporters believe the game is good in terms of storyline, cutscenes and cinematics. On the other hand, detractors believe that it forever tainted the legacy of the series to focus on an out of place storyline.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The game's main selling point. Lincoln is a Vietnam veteran with a stick up his ass, a bullet drilled into his head, and an explicit desire to make Sal Marcano suffer like hell. How does he take away Sal's brother? By sabotaging a ferry full of upper-class fundraising a corrupt politician, who is set on fire. And then it explodes, killing everyone but Lincoln. Every execution is in some way excessively violent, and every mini-boss uses some form of chaos and excessive violence. The entire narrative is about interrogating Lincoln's minions after he single-handedly destroyed New Bordeaux.
  • The Baron Saturday theme park is one of the most racist things ever created with a caricatured black cartoon Baron Samedi spouting off horribly inaccurate facts about the Vodou religion. The line crossing happens that the level is about Lincoln hunting down and murdering white supremacists holed up there and lynching their leader. Afterward, the radio mentions the park failed due to being unpopular with black groups. Gee, really?
  • Lincoln Clay's Black Comedy awakening of his friend Donovan by pretending to be a Vietnam soldier attacking in the middle of the night. It's terrible and implies Donovan has PTSD. It's also hilarious. Actual veterans have said its something they've seen done in real life.
• Cult Classic: The game received a lot of criticism upon release and was not initially received well by traditional mafia fans. It has since built up its own rabid fanbase of individuals who love it for its soundtrack, unflinching depiction of racism, use of The '60s, and colorful cast of characters.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game is rather repetitive and tedious when it comes to acquiring territory and it doesn't really take advantage of the open world game style it introduced to the series, but the premise and the story is just enough to maintain enough interest in seeing what's gonna happen next. Viewed with all the story scenes spliced together in a continuous movie, the plot can be quite engaging for fans of the mobster film genre.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: CIA agent John Donavan has been very popular due to calling out the senator for being involved in the Kennedy assassination and killing him on live TV, then telling the other conspirators that he's coming for them next.
• Fan-Disliked Explanation: Some fans of Mafia II often refuse to believe that Leo Galante's driver may possibly be Joe Barbaro, believing that it cancels out the mystery behind what happened to him after Galante said he wasn't a part of him and Vito's deal. Due to disputes involving what really happened to Joe, the Wikia-made Mafia Wiki explicitly disallows any mention about this topic.
• Game-Breaker: Silenced pistols are these if you're going for stealth.
  • The weed farm you unlock from beating Faster, Baby! can make you vast amounts of money, enough to easily dwarf your kickback money. Through upgrades and hybridizing, you'll eventually have quick-growing super weed that can sell for $30-50k per batch. The only downside is that you have to drive there yourself every time.
• Goddamned Bats: Sentries. Even though they're usually the weakest enemy in any racket (even late into the game, they're merely armed with a pistol), they can be a major nuisance in the beginning of the game by calling in reinforcements. Said reinforcements usually use much more advanced guns than the player, and can easily rip through Lincoln in seconds if you're too careless to hide. Not to mention, they usually tend to be in that will alert other enemies if they are killed, even when using stealth approaches. They're also a nuisance even with Cassandra's perk that disables phone lines, as not killing them quick enough may alert other members.
• Good Bad Bugs: Starting a new game without wiping your save data first makes you retain all your weed farm upgrades and custom strains. This means that as soon as you can start Faster, Baby! and beat it, you can make a big fortune early in the game. Unfortunately, a similar glitch also means that the game thinks you've fully upgraded Sammy's bar, so you're unable to fix it up again. Lily will spawn on the second floor, and even if she does show up on the first floor where she should be, you can't talk to her.
• Harsher in Hindsight: A big twist involving Burke is that he is only a few months away from death, and dies shortly afterward in the endings where he doesn't end up in control of New Bordeaux. Barry O'Rourke, Burke's voice actor, would pass away only close to four years later.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The game's plot is about acquiring territory for your gang with a Ragtag Band of Misfits associates. This is a concept which has been done in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the Saints Row series, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and plenty of other titles. Aside from its setting and focus on racism, the game doesn't arguably distinguish itself very well from other titles of its nature.
• Jerkass Woobie: Burke's a bigoted, mean-spirited drunk who has no problem resorting to violence to achieve his goals. However, in addition to the pain of losing his son, he drunkenly confesses to Lincoln that he has spent his whole life fighting and pushing away people who only wanted to help him.
• Magnificent Bastard: John Donovan is an eccentric yet equally ruthless and effective rogue CIA agent with a strong loyalty to both his friends and his country. Assisting his friend and comrade Lincoln Clay in his crusade against Sal Marcano, Donovan provides him with various intel on Marcanos operations and possible allies. After wiretapping most of New Bordeaux and even Marcano and his closest lieutenants, Donovan helps Lincoln devise various assassination methods, including drugging the funeral of Southern Union leader Remy Duvall with LSD, sinking the cruise ship of Lou Marcano and infiltrating and burning down Tommy Marcanos boxing ring. Teaming up with Lincoln to stop his traitorous comrade Alridge from selling a nuclear missile in hopes of destroying America, Donovan proves himself as a highly skilled gunfighter who can keep up with Lincoln himself. Having set up an alliance with Marcanos three biggest rivals, Donovan advises Lincoln to kill them once Marcano is dead, reasoning that one of them will eventually do the same to him. Hauled before a senate hearing for his involvement in Marcanos death, Donovan proudly confesses before revealing the head senator as a conspirator in John F. Kennedys assassination alongside Marcano. Killing the senator while warning his allies that they are next, Donovan escapes the building as the only major criminal to escape justice in every ending.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Fresh bucatini" becoming an inside joke amongst fans, to the point that even Rick Pasqualone himself made a video about it upon request from a Cameo user. ^ExplanationA cutscene in the game has Vito prepare a bucatini recipe in his kitchen. It goes even further and more ridiculous when Vito offers some to Lincoln should the latter give out territory to him.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Sal crosses this when he betrays and kills the Black Mob. This is particularly noticeable as it's completely unnecessary as the reason Sal has the Black Mob killed (Sammy's "weakness") is now compensated for by the fact Lincoln is there to back him up. We also discover that not only does Sal betray the Black Mob but he also betrayed everyone else involved in the heist as well from Vito to Burke. We later discover he had a semi-decent reason for doing so as he needed the money to fund his casino and get his family out of the mafia life - but due to racist elitism, he didn't even consider convincing the pushover Sammy into becoming a legitimate business partner, and was basically leaving his lieutenants to grovel and die.
  • Ritchie Doucet crossed it with the kidnapping of black women to be raped by white patrons.
  • Remy Duvall has crossed so many lines that it is almost impossible to keep a single example. Under his leadership, Duvall's organization murders blacks and literally sells blacks into slavery for wealthy whites. It is later revealed by Donovan that Remy took part in the murder of four civil rights workers three years before the events of the game, in which one of them was decapitated.
  • Lincoln himself can cross this by killing his underbosses so he has complete control over New Bordeaux's criminal underworld. Notably, if he does this, Father James realizes he's no better than Sal Marcano, possibly worse, and has him killed with a car bomb. And that's not considering how many civilians the player has killed by now, mostly for kicks.
• Narm:
  • Averted during development. Lincoln and his friends originally used their N-Word Privileges a lot more, but playtesters found it comical, leading Hangar 13 to tone down the language slightly in the final script.
  • The Dixie Mafia's racism and criminal activity is serious, but when even the city's brothel security staff wear overalls, it can be easily seen as a case of taking the redneck stereotype a bit too far.
  • While it's a nice Anti-Frustration Feature, the fact that traffic violations don't get Lincoln in trouble in a town full of racist cops is a bit jarring. Walking into a white-only bar is apparently a worse crime than driving 100mph on the opposite lane. Though the "white only bar" is justified given that the Mafia owns most of it and early in the game some of the targets are there.
  • After entering the now-derelict Sammy's Bar and having several painful, tragic flashbacks hit him all at once, as soon as it's over, Lincoln wonders aloud, "what the fuck?", saying it in a tone which would imply that he just woke up from a drunken stupor instead of a traumatic near-death experience.
• Older Than They Think: Some of the people who decry that the theme of racism has no place in a Mafia game apparently forgot that the last game had many characters expressing horrifyingly racist behaviors, including slurs and whatnot.
• Porting Disaster:
  • Basically sums up the PC version, as the developers made the decision to lock the frame rate to 30 fps, citing consistency with all platforms as a reason. Naturally, this doesn't bode well with PC gamer crowd as they expected the game to be more feature-filled than the console releases. Though complaints did die down after the 60 FPS patch came out.
  • Further analysis shows that the game also upscales from 720p regardless of how powerful your hardware is, resulting in blurriness even if one turns anti-aliasing off (even despite also seeing jagged pixels). What makes this stand out is that the Xbox One version of the game does the same thing, while the PlayStation 4 version upscales from 900p, meaning the PlayStation version technically looks cleaner than both the Xbox and PC versions. Furthermore, button prompts involving keyboard and mouse are prone to be glitchy for abnormal reasons, and switching an input for control seems to crash the game when it's pressed. Which is bad considering it's not exactly a perfect control setup, what with Left Alt being your counter button and all.
  • The Definitive Edition has been accused of actually lowering the frame rate and being less graphically well done than the original edition.
• The Scrappy: Cassandra, for constantly complaining about not getting enough rackets unless you give her the majority of them. Her ending when Lincoln leaves does not help matters as she turns New Bordeaux into a crumbling trash heap even before the hurricane hits the city.
• Scrappy Mechanic: At least on consoles, the aiming reticule slows down when it's near an NPC. This sounds like an Anti-Frustration Feature, but those used to aiming with a controller may find it more frustrating than anything. Not only does practically no other game do this, it also means that shooting characters who're currently running becomes harder than it should be. This also cannot be turned off in the settings, and the fact that there already is an auto-aim function raises the question why it exists in the first place.
  • Unlike other Mafia titles, Police do not drop their weapons when killed or knocked out, meaning going on rampages is not feasible since Lincoln will run out of ammo.
• Special Effects Failure: For an otherwise good-looking game, the skyboxes are weirdly ugly, with clouds that look like bizarre blobs of paint and night skies that are devoid of stars, even outside of populated areas.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Not the main game, which has a Broken Base but the DLC for Mafia III to the main game. Generally, the response to Faster, Baby and Sign of the Times is that they're more imaginative, better written, and have more entertaining characters despite their size.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: What many Mafia fans felt due to the fact that it moved from being about a member of Los Cosa Nostra to being a member of the Black Mob in a New Orleans clone. Furthermore, the previous Mafia games were much more heavily story focused while the Wide-Open Sandbox nature of this game results in a large amount of busy work. Some reviewers have suggested you could have just kept the story missions and it would have been a perfectly fine game with far less Filler.
  • For these reasons, some may find it more palatable to view this game as an across-the-pond Spiritual Successor to Grand Theft Auto: London 1969 rather than a true Mafia sequel.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Sammy and Ellis are genuinely well-liked characters that have an enjoyable easy-going relationship with Lincoln Clay. Both are executed in the very beginning of the game to justify Lincoln's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • The Family Lieutenants of Alma Diaz, Emanuele Lazare, and Nicki Burke are all very well liked. They have only a tiny role in the game as quest-givers for side content that few players bother with.
  • Oddly, the Southern Union. Fighting The Klan has proven one of the most popular elements of the game and they're a group that only shows up in one area. A Downplayed Trope as the Dixie Mob occupies most of their role in poorer areas. Still, many fans would have loved a whole game about fighting them.
    • Remy Duvall is also a Love to Hate villain that makes a big impression with his Native Son broadcasts as well as naked racism. He's also played by Nolan North. Like with the Southern Union, many gamers would have loved him to be the Big Bad.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many fans were actually excited about setting the game during the Civil Rights Era, the death of Martin Luther King, and the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. Others note that the game is a stereotypical "gang territory takeover" storyline combined with a revenge plot. This has led to a Broken Base.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Dividing the city between the underbosses was touted as one of the game's key features. If you gave too much to one the other two would turn against you. While a good idea on paper, it's completely pointless if you know basic math. There are nine districts in New Bordeaux and three underbosses. Not counting the ones they start off with all you have to do is give them two each and the city will be divided evenly between them. The only reason not to do that is if you really hate one or more of them.
• Vindicated by History: Mafia III was initially a bomb on release with the bugs, changes in setting, and grinding gameplay resulting in a very poor reception from critics as well as fans alike. The game's soundtrack, characters, story, and unflinching depiction of racism kept fans interested. The Definitive Edition has since gathered all the bug fixes, DLC, and additions to make the game something fans love. It is now considered a Cult Classic.

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