Generally speaking, I’m not someone who plays a lot of DLC. I like to play a game to its conclusion and move on. Rarely do I come back. However, Mafia: The Old Country is a different story. With how good it’s story was and how much I enjoy the Mafia franchise, I had to come back for Man Of Honor.

Man Of Honor sees us return to Sicily to once again play as Enzo. In an interesting bit of storytelling (it’s kind of required considering how The Old Country ended) we are thrown back to 1905 just after Chapter 5 of the main game. Enzo has worked his way up the ranks enough for Don Torrisi to trust him and he is doing his share of heavy lifting for the family.

During a meeting with the Don an old friend of the family makes his return from prison to ask for a favor from the Don Torrisi to get what was stolen from him and some revenge. That man is none other than Ennio Salieri. If that name sounds familiar to you then you should know he is the boss of the Salieri family which is the main family from the original Mafia game.

A Young Salieri

For all intents and purposes this Man of Honor DLC is to let us learn about the early days of Salieri, before he heads to America to become one of the big time players in New York. This young version of Salieri is young and reckless, but he is ambitious. The DLC’s 2 chapters portrays that perfectly, which at this point should be expected. Hangar13 has mastered the art of mafia storytelling.

Anytime we can get more Enzo and Cesare as well it is great, and while all of this was meant to (re)introduce players to Salieri, it really is about all 3 of them. We also get a bit more backstory with Enzo and Isabella here which is great to see.

My biggest complaint about Man of Honor is that there simply wasn’t enough of it. The 2 chapters clocked in at about 2 hours which is typical, but I was enjoying it enough to want more. But it did its job in setting us up for when we inevitably return to America and have something to do with Salieri one way or another.

The other issue that I can see coming up is that both chapters are rather light on action. Most of your time will be spent driving around listening to conversations rather than shooting up a rival gang. The action sections that are here are phenomenal, especially the final section, but they are few and far between.

And that is kind of the overarching issue with Man Of Honor. When you are creating a DLC that is essentially thrown into the middle of the campaign, it feels like it should have just been part of the original release. You wouldn’t think too much about the lack of action if this was simply chapter 6 and 7 of the base game, which is essentially what they should be.

A Boost To Free Ride

The other big piece of content we got with Man of Honor is in free ride. Salieri is here now and offers you up jobs and challenges. They are pretty standard affair in the sense that they are basic “go here, collect something and bring it back to Salieri or go kill someone and come back to Salieri” jobs. They are fun and a nice way to kill some time.

The challenges also add some more replay-ability to the free ride part of Mafia: The Old Country. Trying to improve on your times and things like that will make players come back.

There is also the addition of more collectibles in the forms of Wanted Posters. These posters actually show the developers so it’s a nice touch, though the open world certainly doesn’t need any more collectibles to search for. 

Overall, this was great to see the focus on the free ride. I’m not sure how many players actually care about free ride in a Mafia game at this point, but Hangar13 has at least done a good job of adding enough content now that gives players a reason to do so.

Final Thoughts

The Man of Honor DLC for Mafia: The Old Country is a good DLC. The new chapters are enjoyable and setup the next Mafia game well and the additions to free ride help flesh that out even more. The issue is these chapters felt like they should have been here from the beginning considering they are thrown into the middle of the campaign. If you haven’t started Mafia: The Old Country yet, play Man of Honor once it opens up for you, it will be a better experience that way. 

Mafia: The Old Country Man of Honor was reviewed on Xbox Series X. A review code was provided by 2K for purpose of this review.