Roundup: Here's What The Reviews Are Saying About Mafia: The Old Country

2K's Mafia: The Old Country releases in just a few short hours for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S (going live at midnight in most regions on console), and therefore the first reviews have started to hit the web this morning.

It seems most of the reviews are limited to the PC version for now, so we don't have a great idea of how it performs on PlayStation and Xbox just yet, but we can still see what critics think of the actual game - and they're quite divided!

Here's what some of the reviews are saying about Mafia: The Old Country so far:

Press Start Australia (9/10)

"Mafia: The Old Country is an excellent prequel to the Mafia series. There’s so much to like in the 10-15 hour experience, whether it’s the excellent writing, stunning cutscenes or the enjoyable moment to moment gameplay. While it has its flaws, Hangar 13’s latest is a well-crafted love letter to a series I’ve loved for many years."

IGN (8/10)

"Mafia: The Old Country is an effective return to the linear and tightly story-driven format of the original Mafia and Mafia II. It doesn’t reinvent stealth, and there’s nothing especially remarkable about its typical third-person cover shooting – but with great writing, excellent vocal performances, and a wonderful eye and ear for detail, The Old Country is a potent and immersive time machine to a rarely explored era."

VGC (4/5)

"Mafia: The Old Country returns to the series' roots with a more linear adventure, delivering a solid story (if a cliché-heavy one) and satisfying combat. The character models and environments are stunning to look at, but the latter raises our main issue: as much as we appreciate the focus on a linear story, this wonderfully sculpted Sicily map is begging to be explored more and is sorely underused as a result."

PCGamesN (8/10)

"Mafia: The Old Country looks backward, both in its setting and design ethos. Combining gorgeous visuals, strong character work, and scrappy action set pieces, the outcome is a confident, understated crime game that does exactly what it's supposed to."

GamingBible (7/10)

"Some small annoyances aside, Mafia: The Old Country is a great entry to the long-running series, and it’s done a fine job at adapting the formula to a brand new historical context. It does run the risk of alienating long-time fans, as the jump back in time makes it quite an adjustment. However, if you just let it tell the story it wants to, you’ll find it can match the quality you've come to expect from this series."

GameSpot (6/10)

"Mafia: The Old Country is at its best when things slow down, letting you take in all the sights and sounds of Sicily. Like previous Mafia games, it nails the look and feel of its real-world counterpart by investing heavily in the details. Unfortunately, generic gameplay and dated mission design hold Mafia: The Old Country back, making it feel like a relic of the early 2010s."

GameInformer (6/10)

"The Old Country isn’t bad; it’s also not great. Perhaps most depressing, it’s simply fine, inoffensively so. There’s nothing in here you haven’t seen elsewhere, cast included. And worse yet, probably done better. For all the great prequels out there, The Old Country is proof that going backwards isn’t always an interesting way forward."

As you can see, it's not all great news here, but let's put things in context - the game still has a perfectly decent 75 average rating on Metacritic at the time of writing based on 35 reviews. It'll probably settle somewhere around the 70-75 mark when all's said and done, which is a slight disappointment, but not a terrible result by any means.

Remember, this is a game that's launching for just £44.99 / $49.99 on Xbox tomorrow, so it's somewhat of a budget release. If you're interested, you can go and pre-order it right now (there's a more expensive "Deluxe" version too).

What do you make of these reviews for Mafia: The Old Country? Let us know down in the comments.