Update 3: Update Harderer

Another statement on the Mafia 3 website indicates that the promised patch will arrive sooner than we might have expected:

We currently have a patch running here at the studio that includes 30, 60, and unlimited frames-per-second options in the video menu, among other improvements for the PC version of Mafia III. We’re verifying the patch now to ensure everything is working as expected. If everything goes well, we expect the update to go live this weekend. We will be keeping the PC community up-to-date on the status of the patch throughout the weekend and thank you for all the feedback!

Read more: This is the Police 2 review

Update 2: Update Harder

A statement on the official Mafia 3 website acknowledges that at launch, Mafia 3 will run at a maximum 30 frames per second on all platforms. The statement mentions that the studio is at work on a patch "that will give players the option to play Mafia 3 at higher framerates." Here's the statement in full:

We know how important having options that best suit your PC’s performance capabilities are. 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. We are currently working on an update for PC that will give players the option to play Mafia III at higher framerates. We’ll share more details about the update, and when you can expect it to arrive, very soon. In the meantime, the team welcomes feedback and would like to hear from you about what performance adjustment options are important to you. We’re actively considering a number of additional post-launch improvements on PC that would give players more control over how they can tailor the game’s experience to suit their rig’s performance. It’s been an incredible journey developing Mafia III and we couldn’t be more excited to get the game in your hands and hear what you think!

Update:

Nvidia's latest game ready driver is out now. But even after updating the frame rate is still stuck at 30. I've also been searching for any files to tweak to uncap the FPS, but no luck so far.

Our original story is below:

We received Mafia 3 code this afternoon, and I've started work on the review. But I noticed that the controls felt kinda sluggish, before realising that, if my Fraps readings (and my eyes) are correct, the game is locked to 30 fps.

I thought maybe my PC just couldn't handle it, so I shifted down 720p and the lowest graphics settings, but it was still locked to 30. I'm running a GTX 970, an i5-6600K overclocked to 4.5GHz, and 16GB of RAM, which should be more than enough. And it still happens when I disable the in-game vsync option.

So yeah, not great. Whether this is something that'll be fixed in a day one patch, or will be sorted via a forthcoming graphics driver update, remains to be seen, but as it stands it feels like Lincoln is trudging through sludge as I walk around the (very pretty) city of New Bordeaux.