Mafia 3 turned me into a conspiracy therorist. Game's so thoroughly broken--every single aspect of it in fact and I mean it--I'm hundred percent sure the entire Hangar 13 team got kidnapped by an alien race right after the development of this game concluded and got replaced by buncha members of that said alien race that happened to be actual competent game developers. There is no way the same team behind this worked on and produced Mafia: Definitive Edition later on, I ain't buying that narrative.

And like the game being a completely broken mess isn't enough, it pulls off one of the biggest bait-and-switch moments ever in the history of gaming as it starts out as a fine enough game with interesting side characters, a potentially compelling story and decent combat with great music with a combination of not only original work but also a great arrangement of licensed songs, yet only a couple hours in, everything gets thrown out of the window in favor of a completely unlikable cast of side characters, a mind-numbingly repetitive gameplay loop and an ultimately unintereting story starring a painfully one-dimensional main character; repetitive being the key aspect of it all. This might be the single most repetitive game I've ever played in my life, and since the things this game makes you repeat are also shockingly mundane, I can hardly call the entire experience the least bit enjoyable. There was only one, singular mission throughout the entire game I thought was enjoyable because it allowed some sorta freedom and rewarded my creativity but that's it, there are like hundreds of missions in the game and only one of 'em is a slightly fun one, unbelievable.

As a last note I want to reiterate how inherently and incomprehensibly broken Mafia 3 is because it can't even consistently launch. Every time you click that Play button, there is a high chance that the game's gonna crash after the intro sequence. My highest streak of crashing-at-launch was five. Which means at some point, I had to sit through the intro cinematic and the loading screen FIVE TIMES IN A ROW JUST TO PLAY THE DAMNED GAME. When you consider how almost any and every mission tends to get broken at any given time, requiring a complete restart (with loading to a previous checkpoint proving ineffective) that issue gets even worse. I painstakingly took note of almost any and all bug/glitch I've encountered and the list is as long as Big Smoke's order but I just wanted to highlight this one particularly because it's such a core issue.

Even the inclusion of Vito or the game's overall unique and documentary style presentation that I enjoyed, hell not even the great VA performances combined with brilliant mocap doesn't make this game canon in my head. As long as I'm concerned, this was just a fever dream of mine. If you value what's left of your sanity and your remaining time on this earth, I suggest you do the same and don't ever touch this game. It's not worth it.

There is no better soundtrack. I sometimes load up the game and just park on a hill and listen to the radio. I enjoyed playing the game as well. This was a good addition to the series.

The story is a master piece!