Mafia III

Mafia III left behind the post-war setting of the previous entries and moved the player to the fictional New Bordeaux, inspired by New Orleans of the late 1960s, full of racial tension, corruption and organized crime. The protagonist is Vietnam veteran Lincoln Clay, who, after being betrayed and having his surrogate family within the local mafia wiped out, sets out on a bloody revenge against the entire criminal organization. Instead of the linear storytelling of the series' first two entries, the third game offered a sprawling open world divided among several factions and districts that can gradually be taken over, squeezed for money, or destroyed to benefit a rival faction.

The game places extraordinary emphasis on the atmosphere of the era - period music playing on the radio while driving, period clothing and cars, and social issues including openly depicted racism that Lincoln Clay, as a black veteran, has to constantly confront - and tells its story through documentary-style interludes with fictional witnesses, as if reconstructing real events for a TV documentary about organized crime. The gameplay combines cover-based shootouts with elements of quiet infiltration, tailing patrols and silent takedowns, along with building your own criminal empire, where the player installs allies from several different factions into vacated underworld positions in exchange for their specific perks, such as discounts from merchants or better vehicles. Critics noted especially the repetitive way of taking over individual districts and the similarity of the missions, but the atmosphere, music and story of revenge and betrayal still won the game plenty of devoted fans.

Why play it: Mafia III will appeal to players who want a dark story of revenge and racism set in a faithfully rendered city of the 1960s, complemented by a superb period soundtrack and strong lead characters, and who don't mind accepting an open world with more repetitive side missions and territory-taking in exchange.