The day has finally come, a day I’ve been waiting for since 2010 when Mafia II was released and quickly finished thereafter. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fan of the series or that I’ve wasn’t eagerly awaiting over the years for Mafia III to be announced. 2K games granted one wish in 2015 when they officially announced the return to the Mafia franchise, and it’s been a waiting game ever since.

Today that wait is over…sort of…you see, for some the game still has a few hours left until it’s available, while others were probably overjoyed to press “play” after waiting for what must have seemed like an eternity. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of PC gamers, myself included, our hopes for a day one fantastic experience was quickly drowned in a sea of tears.

While yes, 2K games and Hangar 13 have been dishing out plenty of Mafia III news, updates, screen shots, behind the scenes and gameplay videos. Much like the awesome launch trailer seen above, scored quite fittingly with an original song, “Nobody Wants to Die” featuring Ice Cube and DJ Shadow. No one can say that we were starved of information, or that anything we’ve seen was lacking in any way, for all intents and purposes, Mafia III was highlighted and received quite favorably.

Sadly, someone over there forgot to tell them that PC gamers play on PC for a reason, performance and controls being the most pertinent. Somewhere along the lines, someone thought it was a brilliant idea to lock the frame rate to a lovely “cinematic” 30 FPS. Yes, in 2016, a Triple A developer with a franchise that started out and flourished on the PC platform since 2002, decided it was perfectly acceptable to release a game at the “optimal” console sweet spot.

It doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict what happens next, and in all honesty, they have no one but themselves to blame for this clusterfuck. Displeased gamers took to social media and Steam to voice just how thrilled they are to be playing a game, on PC…artificially locked to 30 FPS. At the time of writing this, the game sits with a lovely “Mixed” rating, which isn’t nearly as bad as the “Mostly Negative” it was stuck with for several hours.

Not only is the performance impacted, apparently the controls don’t fare much better, players reporting unresponsive, clunky mouse controls, feeling sluggish and flat out disappointing and near impossible to play. Let’s be honest, 30 FPS does suck, but it’s not completely unplayable, some will power on and play Mafia III despite the handicap, to those people, I commend you, I personally am opting out and awaiting a fix, whether that being from the tinkering of disgruntled gamers, or through official channels in the form of a patch.

To their credit, they didn’t do what many of those before them haven’t done, and by that I mean, slide into the shadows and remain silent for weeks on end, all while an angry mob of gamers are calling for blood. The official Mafia III site has quickly typed up a response, albeit a completely comical and condescending response, with this lovely gem, “The team has been hard at work ensuring that Mafia III’s performance is consistent across all platforms, and right now the game runs at a solid 30 frames-per-second”.

Well now, I guess we have nothing to complain about since the game is running at a “solid 30 frames-per-second” gee golly, aren’t we fortunate. Whether you wait for a fix, or manage to trudge through it in its current state, one can only hope that there’s a bright and shiny light at the end of this long, disastrous tunnel. Hopefully, this gigantic slip up doesn’t completely taint something that could quite well be a marvelous game.