Ahead of its full release we spend a few hours with Tommy, Paulie, and the rest of the Salieri crew and channel our inner Wise Guy in this built-from-the-ground-up Mafia remake. Which not only gives the 2002 original a fresh coat of paint, but puts it in the Witness Protection program in terms of new look and feel. But still, same old Tommy.

A snippet from our preview where we played the first five chapters of Mafia: Definitive Edition, a bonus mission out in the county, and that infamous race car sequence.

As a modern yet entirely faithful recreation of the original, amid the new and impressive visuals, facial animation, and expanded dialogue and cinematic sequences, lies a structure that will feel familiar. The opening scene recreates the one found in the original, the moment Tommy decides to side with the feds and ‘get out’. From there you flash back to what is essentially the game’s first mission, Tommy helping a couple of Salieri’s boys escape a few thugs after they stumble onto his cab. How that plays out is almost exactly like it did back in the day. A car chase full of twists and turns and using roadworks to cause a few crashes.

Our Full Mafia: Definitive Edition Preview