#Mafia 3 non lethal full#

Hurt a citizen and soon the cops or an ambulance will show up to deal with the disturbance. In GTA, you can test the coherence of the world in many ways. While Mafia 3 contains some interesting social mechanics, such as the racist reactions of citizens whenever Clay happens to be somewhere that is not “proper” for a black person to be, the world at large feels devoid of interacting systems. If you get bored of such easy pickings, a frontal assault is similarly accommodating, with enemy AI more likely to line up like lemmings before your automatic fire than provide any cohesive challenge. Every single one is also stupid enough to fall for Clay’s luring whistle from cover, wandering over to his position to be slaughtered by a knife thrust to the throat. Stealth is laughably overpowered, with dim-witted goons following easily-understood patrol paths. Violence, it seems, is the only language in which Clay is capable of communicating, and he excels in it. The explicitly violent aspect of Mafia 3’s world continues throughout, to the point where you actually have to go into the options menu to enable non-lethal stealth kills. Clay seems mighty quick to trust a handful of associates to handle the rackets and territory he so violently takes over, with nary a care that history might repeat itself. His propensity for settling into easy, game-like behaviours starts to feel dissonant, especially for someone who was double-crossed in rather violent fashion. His manipulation by the government during his military service seems to have done little to help his self-worth, because all he does is turn to his former black-bag CIA handler to help him take revenge on the mafia. I can’t say that I developed very much remorse for Clay when everything turned to crap.

#Mafia 3 non lethal full#

Mafia 3’s opening hours are full of questionable characters doing questionable things. “Damn,’ my companion remarked, “he’ll be shitting that guy for a week!” Several moments later, there was a tremendous thrashing in the water as an alligator took the bodies. And so, despite my partner’s insistent urges that we had to get moving, I heaved up the guards’ bodies and slowly walked them to the water’s edge, whereupon I dropped them into the dank, swampy waters. A thought formed: Clay wouldn’t leave the bodies to be found. A sign nearby stated that I could feed the ‘gators. Once this shift took place and I settled into the point of view the developers so clearly wanted to put across, I once more inhabited Clay and wandered outside the building.

While I still felt guilty about killing that innocent guard (I guess I could always create some fiction where he was in on it and deserved the bullet), I was able to shift the blame to Lincoln Clay, a psychopathic killing machine. Okay, I thought, this is not about characters I’m meant to like, this is about being an asshole. Interestingly, after this initial jarring episode, I switched mode. It acted as a shocking educational moment. I had no idea that the prompted action would do that, but perhaps that was the point. I’m forced to confront this unintended action that I set in motion with a simple button press. Clay’s companion makes some comment about needing to keep one of the guards alive, to which Lincoln seems nonplussed. Blood spatters the hood in glistening red. I’m shocked as Clay bursts into action, grabbing the victim’s head and shooting it point blank. Does it mean I’m going to talk to the guard? Hit him? Take the hood off? Curious, I press the button. A button prompt appears above the guard, and I’m not sure what this means. His friend was not so lucky, his splayed out body surrounded by the bloody evidence of casual murder.

Thrust into the body of Lincoln Clay, doing that usual first-up thing of using the thumb sticks to look and walk around, I approached a security guard tied up, bag over his head, clearly still alive. Something confronting happens in the opening seconds of Mafia 3.