History YMMV / MafiaIII

** [[CorruptHick Ritchie Doucet]], the leader of the Dixie Mafia, is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first shown]] participating in the betrayal and destruction of the Black Mob, where he personally stabs Ellis, [[PlayerCharacter Lincoln Clay]]'s adoptive younger brother, to death. As a reward for his help, Doucet is given control over Delray Hollow by [[BigBad 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 [[SexSlave sexual slavery]] to service White patrons.

** ''Faster, Baby!'' {{DLC}}: [[CorruptHick 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.

** 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 ([[UpToEleven 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.

* AcceptableTargets: Played with. The game makes TheKlan, Confederate apologists, and Southern racists the target for much of Lincoln's wrath. This has ticked off a very large number of them. This, of course, makes the game even more popular with those who have a dislike for them.

* CompleteMonster: ''VideoGame/MafiaIII'', among its surplus of {{Politically Incorrect Villain}}s, has a pair of HumanTraffickers; a DirtyCop; and the current head of a BreedingCult:

** [[CorruptHick Ritchie Doucet]], the leader of the Dixie Mafia, is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first shown]] participating in the betrayal and destruction of the Black Mob, where he personally stabs Ellis, [[PlayerCharacter Lincoln Clay]]'s adoptive younger brother, to death. As a reward for his help, Doucet is given control over Delray Hollow by [[BigBad 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 [[SexSlave sexual slavery]] to service white patrons.
** [[PompousPoliticalPundit Remy Duvall]] is a BlueBlood of New Bordeaux, and the host of its widely popular "Native Son" radio broadcast. On the air, he presents himself with a [[SouthernGentleman folksy, gentlemanly demeanor]] while he espouses white, Christian values. In private, he's the militant leader of the Southern Union, a white supremacist group, and in league with the Marcano Crime Family. Under his leadership, Duvall's group beats and murders blacks, helps the Marcanos in their PCP operation, and, vilest of all, [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil sells blacks into slavery]] for wealthy whites, a crime that disgusts even other mobsters. After Lincoln Clay dismantles his operations, Duvall gathers his followers with the intention of leading a manhunt for Lincoln, which involves marching them to Delray Hollow and burning it to the ground in revenge. Though Duvall claims to love his city and want to protect it, he's ultimately a self-serving hypocrite who thinks the city belongs to him and only cares about Christian whites, and he's even willing to harm them through his drug dealing and criminal activities if [[ItsAllAboutMe it will benefit himself]].
** ''Faster, Baby!'' {{DLC}}: [[CorruptHick 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}}: [[AxCrazy Bonnie Harless]], the current leader of the [[ReligionOfEvil 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 [[ManipulativeBitch 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.

* CompleteMonster: ''VideoGame/MafiaIII'' has a trio of {{Politically Incorrect Villain}}s, a pair of HumanTraffickers and a DirtyCop, who put all other villains in the series to shame:

** ''Faster, Baby!'' {{DLC}}: [[BigBad Sheriff Walter "Slim" Beaumont]], the [[CorruptHick 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. He 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.

* GoodBadBug: 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.

** Zig-zagged at best; During private preview events gaming press were shown a tool Lincoln Clay can use against enemies, a Voodoo doll. As an object based in stereotypical images of Voodoo and conjuring Black tribal savage imagery, it's not a good look. The devs tried to work around this by explaining that Lincoln is a psychological warfare specialist and while he doesn't believe in Voodoo, the Italian mobsters he's fighting are superstitious enough to react to a Voodoo doll fearfully. [[http://www.giantbomb.com/podcasts/the-giant-beastcast-episode-64/1600-1693/ While discussing their respective preview events]] Vice Gaming's EIC Austin Walker--who is Black--thought the justification was still pretty flimsy and problematic while Italian-American Vinny Caravella of [[Podcast/GiantBomb Giant Bomb]] summed up having the explanation told to him during his previewing as "they pulled back that punch and elbowed me right in the face."

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
** What many VideoGame/{{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.
** The previous mafia games were much more heavily story focused while the WideOpenSandbox nature of the 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}}.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped:
** Racism is not just an issue that comes from specific individuals and their prejudices. It is a larger systematic problem that has infiltrated every element of society. Even if Lincoln Clay deals with the Marcone Mob, he is still a black man subject to a system that hates him.
** PoliceBrutality is a thing that several black people deal with. Lincoln is frequently harassed and sometimes even attacked for just being in the "wrong" neighborhood.

** [[CorruptHick Ritchie Doucet]], the leader of the Dixie Mafia, is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first shown]] participating in the betrayal and destruction of the Black Mob, where he personally stabs Ellis, [[PlayerCharacter Lincoln Clay]]'s younger brother, to death. As a reward for his help, Doucet is given control over Delray Hollow by [[BigBad 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 [[SexSlave sexual slavery]] to service white patrons.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: When the game first came out, the game was criticized for its repetitive nature and lack of alternate activities. The ''Definitive Edition'' added the DLC, alternate costumes, racing, and vehicle customization that dramatically improved the variety of the experience.

*** Further to that point: is John after [[spoiler: Kennedy's killers entirely out of patriotism like he says or is there an unmentioned racial tinge tinge with Donovan (an Irish name) doing this specifically because they killed the first Irish-American president?]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: A common complaint about the game is that while Marcano is a racist backstabber who gets what's coming to him, Lincoln ends up being no better than him or any of his cronies during his RoaringRampageOfRevenge. For example, he ends up killing several people who had very little to do with the murder of his family, such as [[spoiler:Frank Pagani, and several people onboard Lou's boat]] and turns New Bordeaux into a war-ground, which causes Father James to [[spoiler:realize he is no better than Marcano and kill him should Lincoln kill his three cronies.]] In addition, Burke and Cassandra fair no better, being greedy jerks [[spoiler:who end up up destroying New Bordeaux if Lincoln leaves most of New Bordeaux to either]].

** PoliceBrutality is a thing that several black men deal with. Lincoln is frequently harassed and sometimes even attacked for just being in the "wrong" neighborhood.

* HarsherInHindsight:
** The re-release of ''Mafia III'' as the ''Definitive Edition'' in 2020 comes during a time of riots, protests, unrest, and intense backlash against racism (perceived or not).
** Lincoln Clay's tying [[spoiler: Lou Marcone's dead body]] to a statue of Andrew Jackson has a lot more resonance with the divisive discussion of statues dedicated to specific figures from the past.

** PoliceBrutality is a thing that men of all races deal with every day. Lincoln is frequently harassed and sometimes even attacked for just being in the "wrong" neighborhood.

** The re-release of ''Mafia III'' as the ''Definitive Edition'' in 2020 comes during a time of riots, protests, unrest and intense backlash against racism (perceived or not).
** Lincoln Clay's tying [[spoiler: Lou Marcone's dead body]] to a statue of Andrew Jackson has a lot more resonance with the discussion of statues dedicated to specific figures from the past.

** PoliceBrutality is a thing that black men deal with every day. Lincoln is frequently harassed and sometimes even attacked for just being in the "wrong" neighborhood.

** Lincoln Clay's tying [[spoiler: Lou Marcone's dead body]] to a statue of Andrew Jackson has a lot more resonance with the discussion of the role of statues dedicated to racist figures from the past.

** The re-release of ''Mafia III'' as the ''Definitive Edition'' in 2020 comes during a time of Civil Rights protests, protests against PoliceBrutality, and intense backlash against white nationalism (particularly Neo-Confederate).

* TheScrappy: Cassandra, for constantly complaining about not getting enough rackets unless you give her the majority of them. [[spoiler:Her ending when Lincoln leaves does not help matters as she turns New Bordeux into a crumbling trash heap even before the hurricane.]]

** Lincoln Clay's BlackComedy 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 while others say its DudeNotFunny.