The open-world genre dominates the current gaming landscape like few others. Every other game of note in the last decade has given players the ultimate freedom of exploring massive environments at their own pace. Even nontraditional open-world games, like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, incorporate design elements of the popular genre to help create a sense of scale and adventure. While many of these games are worth players’ time, there’s no denying the oversaturation of adventures that take dozens of hours to complete.
It’s why I was so surprised that two of the most eye-catching reveals coming out of this year’s Game Awards are not only open-world but open-world crime games, arguably the oldest, most iterated subgenre of the bunch. But both Hanger 13’s Mafia: The Old Country and Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Project Century break the mold in one important way: They aim to transport the player to a bygone era.
If you’re not caught up, both of these games were revealed with world-premiere trailers at the Game Awards. The trailer for Mafia: The Old Country, officially announced earlier this year, finally provided more context for what this game will be. Players take control of a young man named Enzo Favara, an orphaned laborer looking for a place to belong to in 1900s Sicily.
The developers already told us back in August that the series will be reverting to its focus on narrative, as opposed to an open world full of side activities and secrets to find. But what Thursday’s trailer revealed is just how big a departure The Old Country is from the rest of the Mafia games in terms of setting.
The first three titles, including the seminal, tone-setting first game, took place in the urban, post-industry United States. The backdrop of a fictional city filled with cars, guns, and illegal activities has made it easy for gamers to confuse the Mafia series for a Grand Theft Auto copycat, despite 20 years of the two being radically different approaches to open-world game design.
That difference has never been more stark than in The Old Country. But going back more than a century, Sicily looks like an open world unlike any other in recent memory. While there are more populated cities in Sicily, there are even more rural areas, with breathtaking mountainous vistas and intimate villages. We get peeks at crypts and old-time buildings not yet touched by overdevelopment. Dirt, gravel, and cobblestone still make up the majority of roads in this world which Enzo traverses using both horses and early cars. Even law enforcement seems less organized and omnipresent here, compared with future American counterparts.
The Old Country seems to have more in common with Red Dead Redemption than it does other games in its own series. And for an open-world game set to release in 2025, it’s a welcome departure that sets it apart from others.
Project Century, a game from the team behind the beloved Like a Dragon series (formerly known as Yakuza), is a game set in Japan at the turn of the 20th century. While we know significantly less about Project Century (it doesn’t even have an official title yet), its reveal trailer gave viewers a taste of the vibe that the prolific developer is going for.
This 1910s version of Japan is a dense, walkable sprawl. The streets are filled with shacks and food stands, busy pedestrians in era-appropriate attire, and countless shady back alleys to cut across. Musicians play jazzy instruments for tips as street trolleys make their way through tight intersections.
This is nothing new for the prolific Ryu Ga Gotoku. Last year, the team released Like a Dragon Ishin, a twist on the Yakuza game set in the final days of Feudal Japan. There’s a completely different texture to Project Century’s world. Things feel grittier and darker here. Its unnamed protagonist clearly has zero issues taking a life compared to Yakuza’s Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga.
Project Century also takes place at a time when Western influences are beginning to creep into Japanese culture, a time we don’t often see in the dozens of franchises set in Japan. This helps break from the familiarity of any of the mainline Yakuza games’ more contemporary setting.
Project Century and Mafia: The Old Country are both fun departure from the less grounded glut of quality open-world games players have been swimming in. Both are as far from the fantasy settings of games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Dragon’s Dogma. They also add a historical twist to games in these developers’ own pasts.
Perhaps most importantly, the unique settings of these games help prevent them from being stepped on by 2025’s most anticipated release. As Rockstar goes all-in on recreating the modern American city with Grand Theft Auto VI, Project Century and Mafia: The Old Country are going for the total opposite. It’s a fortunate coincidence that helps these games stay out of the shadow of what could be the biggest game of all time.
Next year will be full of big releases vying for players’ attention. And thanks to its unique, historical settings and distinct vibes, Mafia: The Old Country and Project Century are already carving out their own audiences in a crowded genre.
