Mixtape Review: Is It Worth Your Time?
Released: May 7, 2026
Developer: Beethoven & Dinosaur
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Game Pass
Genre: Narrative Adventure, Interactive Movie, Coming-of-Age / Nostalgia Game
Playtime: ~3–4 hours first playthrough, ~5–6 hours for completion / achievements
You’re probably wondering how I got here.
Yeah, me too.
That was my general feeling through most of Mixtape, a nostalgia driven interactive movie, video game…. thing from Beethoven & Dinosaur and Annapurna Interactive.
And yes, I am being generous with that description.
What makes this one especially strange is the critical reception. Some review outlets are hailing Mixtape as a masterpiece, with IGN going so far as to give it a 10 out of 10. OpenCritic has it sitting high and mighty as well.
So I guess I am going to have to be the dissenting opinion here.
This game is bad.
Let’s talk about it.
Story
You play as Stacy Rockford, an odd and quirky high school graduate who always seems to know the right song for every situation. To an obsessive degree.
The story revolves around one final hurrah before Stacy heads off to New York to pursue her dream as a music supervisor. You and your friends are on a quest to find alcohol and make it to a beach party, and along the way you constantly reminisce about the greatest hits of your past together.
Mixtape focuses a LOT onts music - how a Mixtape can help create memories that last. The opening even has a fourth wall break where the main character talks about how you should always make mixtapes, because after you live those moments, the music lets them live on as memories. Then you fly into this downhill skating sequence set to DEVO, and honestly, I was into it. But that only lasted about 10 minutes….
The memories start off grounded, then devolve into bigger, stranger, more exaggerated situations. You are running through a field with your friends, then suddenly you are flying. The idea being that you're looking back on these moments through the lens of nostalgia, where everything feels bigger, better, and more meaningful than it probably was.
But the problem is that Mixtape never made me care about the people having those memories.
This is your typical coming of age story with all the associated tropes. The rebellious teenagers. The final night together. The party. The music. The fourth wall breaks. The overly meaningful conversations. The sense that every little moment is supposed to feel like it is saying something profound.
But the characters are written in this strange way where they are all deep, insightful, perfectly articulate, and emotionally aware, but also not really. It feels like the game wants them to come across as messy teenagers, but they often talk like idealized versions of teenagers being remembered by someone decades later.
I did not connect with the story at all. It felt like a bunch of random memories about a group of friends I had no connection with, and the game did not give me a reason to connect with them.
Think about the masterpeice The Last of Us. Spoilers for the open ing of that game, if somehow you have not played it yet. In the 20 minutes you are introduced to Sarah and she dies…. But that death hurt on a deeply emotional level. Yet its only been 20 minutes.
God of War does something similar. You understand Kratos and Atreus almost immediately. You understand the tension. You understand the relationship. You understand why their journey matters.
Mixtape never got there…. It never made those connections. You never CARED about these people.
I kept hoping agains thope that something else was going to happen in this story. A twist. A darker turn. Maybe morph into some sort of psychological horror…. something….. anything.
Gameplay
A lot of people are complaining that Mixtape is not really a game. I'll disagree…. it IS a game. Just one that doesn't need your input.
Compare it to something like a visual novel. Something like Doki Doki Literature Club. It is an incredible game, but ALL of its gameplay is selecting text boxes and watching things play out. Not really high octane gameplay - but the text boxes you pick matter. The choices matter. And the story behind them is deep and interesting.
In Mixtape, there are multiple sequences where you are supposed to provide input, but you could put the controller down and everything would probably be fine. You are not influencing the story. You are not making meaningful choices. You are not really affecting anything.
You are just along for the ride.
Sometimes you are skating down a hill. Sometimes you are wandering around looking at things. Sometimes you are throwing rocks. Sometimes you are doing a random kissing mini game. They are not really mechanics as much as they are little interactive moments.
The gameplay in a game should help immerse you into the world. One of the biggest ways to do that is to make the player feel involved. Give me agency. Give me impact. Give me something that feels good to do. Give me something that makes the story hit harder because I was part of it.
Mixtape does not do that. The gameplay does not need the player. And when your gameplay does not need the player, the story really has to step up.
But as we have already discussed, it does not.
Graphics
Visually, Mixtape has a bit of an identity crisis.
The characters are animated like they are in a stop motion movie, or claymation, basically a Spider Verse movie.
The issue is that while the characters are stuttering around at what looks like 24 frames per second, the rest of the world is perfectly smooth. The background, the camera movement, the environments, all of that can feel much smoother than the characters themselves. And the contrast is jarring.
Something needed to be done to make the world and characters feel more visually connected. You could still have the characters animate at a lower frame rate. But maybe limit the background to something closer to 48 frames per second so it still feels smoother than the characters, but not so disconnected from them.
Even funnier, there are moments where the characters seem to forget they are supposed to be animated that way and start moving perfectly smooth.
Outside of that, I do not have a ton of complaints about the graphics. The game has some nice visual ideas. I liked the changing perspectives. I liked some of the old camera effects. I liked the way it tried to use different visual styles to communicate memory and nostalgia.
Sound
The voice acting is good.
All of the characters sound exactly like you would expect them to sound. They fit their stereotypes completely, and the performances are well done. Even if I did not care about the story they were telling, I do not think the actors were the problem.
Not let's talk about Mixtapes Mixtape…. (its soundtrack). This is the thing I keep seeing people praise over and over again. And yes, the soundtrack is good.
Of course it is good. It is packed with big licensed songs from well known artists. DEVO, Roxy Music, The Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Joy Division, The Cure, and more. The music is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
But if you take the music out of Mixtape, what is left? Because the thing so many reviews are praising is not really something Mixtape created. The legs this game is standing on are not even its own.
If I made you a mixtape of Mixtape and handed it to you, you would not think, “Oh, this is from that Mixtape Game!”
You would just think, “Hey, this is a mix of great songs.”
The premise of the game, music being tied to memory, is good. But the delivery fails. When you hear one of these songs again, I do not think you are going to think about Mixtape. You are going to think about the actual song, the actual band, or your own memories with it.
That is where I want to contrast this with Guardians of the Galaxy.
That game also used a bunch of hit songs. But it went further. It created an entire fictional rock band, the Star Lord Band, with original music that belongs to that game. When you hear those songs, you think of Guardians of the Galaxy.
That is the difference.
When I hear DEVO, I am not going to think about skating down a hill in Mixtape.
I am just going to think about DEVO.
Final Verdict
So, is Mixtape worth your time?
No.
The first 10 minutes had me excited. The music was great. The opening was stylish. The gameplay was simple, but that was fine. I thought I was in for an incredible story.
I was wrong. The only thing that could have saved this game was an incredible story, and it does not have that.
I have never once thought, “Hey, I want to sit down and watch a video game about post graduated teenagers nostalgia dripping, and then maybe throw rocks at a random bottle.”
This is not a good game.
The gameplay isn't there. The story did not connect. The visuals have some good ideas but also feel inconsistent. The soundtrack is good, but mostly because it is borrowing great music from somewhere else.
I would only recommend trying Mixtape if you already have Xbox Game Pass, that way you are not really wasting money on it.
If I were giving scores, this would be a 1 out of 10.
Mixtape Review: Is It Worth Your Time?
Released: May 7, 2026
Developer: Beethoven & Dinosaur
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Game Pass
Genre: Narrative Adventure, Interactive Movie, Coming-of-Age / Nostalgia Game
Playtime: ~3–4 hours first playthrough, ~5–6 hours for completion / achievements
You’re probably wondering how I got here.
Yeah, me too.
That was my general feeling through most of Mixtape, a nostalgia driven interactive movie, video game…. thing from Beethoven & Dinosaur and Annapurna Interactive.
And yes, I am being generous with that description.
What makes this one especially strange is the critical reception. Some review outlets are hailing Mixtape as a masterpiece, with IGN going so far as to give it a 10 out of 10. OpenCritic has it sitting high and mighty as well.
So I guess I am going to have to be the dissenting opinion here.
This game is bad.
Let’s talk about it.
Story
You play as Stacy Rockford, an odd and quirky high school graduate who always seems to know the right song for every situation. To an obsessive degree.
The story revolves around one final hurrah before Stacy heads off to New York to pursue her dream as a music supervisor. You and your friends are on a quest to find alcohol and make it to a beach party, and along the way you constantly reminisce about the greatest hits of your past together.
Mixtape focuses a LOT onts music - how a Mixtape can help create memories that last. The opening even has a fourth wall break where the main character talks about how you should always make mixtapes, because after you live those moments, the music lets them live on as memories. Then you fly into this downhill skating sequence set to DEVO, and honestly, I was into it. But that only lasted about 10 minutes….
The memories start off grounded, then devolve into bigger, stranger, more exaggerated situations. You are running through a field with your friends, then suddenly you are flying. The idea being that you're looking back on these moments through the lens of nostalgia, where everything feels bigger, better, and more meaningful than it probably was.
But the problem is that Mixtape never made me care about the people having those memories.
This is your typical coming of age story with all the associated tropes. The rebellious teenagers. The final night together. The party. The music. The fourth wall breaks. The overly meaningful conversations. The sense that every little moment is supposed to feel like it is saying something profound.
But the characters are written in this strange way where they are all deep, insightful, perfectly articulate, and emotionally aware, but also not really. It feels like the game wants them to come across as messy teenagers, but they often talk like idealized versions of teenagers being remembered by someone decades later.
I did not connect with the story at all. It felt like a bunch of random memories about a group of friends I had no connection with, and the game did not give me a reason to connect with them.
Think about the masterpeice The Last of Us. Spoilers for the open ing of that game, if somehow you have not played it yet. In the 20 minutes you are introduced to Sarah and she dies…. But that death hurt on a deeply emotional level. Yet its only been 20 minutes.
God of War does something similar. You understand Kratos and Atreus almost immediately. You understand the tension. You understand the relationship. You understand why their journey matters.
Mixtape never got there…. It never made those connections. You never CARED about these people.
I kept hoping agains thope that something else was going to happen in this story. A twist. A darker turn. Maybe morph into some sort of psychological horror…. something….. anything.
Gameplay
A lot of people are complaining that Mixtape is not really a game. I'll disagree…. it IS a game. Just one that doesn't need your input.
Compare it to something like a visual novel. Something like Doki Doki Literature Club. It is an incredible game, but ALL of its gameplay is selecting text boxes and watching things play out. Not really high octane gameplay - but the text boxes you pick matter. The choices matter. And the story behind them is deep and interesting.
In Mixtape, there are multiple sequences where you are supposed to provide input, but you could put the controller down and everything would probably be fine. You are not influencing the story. You are not making meaningful choices. You are not really affecting anything.
You are just along for the ride.
Sometimes you are skating down a hill. Sometimes you are wandering around looking at things. Sometimes you are throwing rocks. Sometimes you are doing a random kissing mini game. They are not really mechanics as much as they are little interactive moments.
The gameplay in a game should help immerse you into the world. One of the biggest ways to do that is to make the player feel involved. Give me agency. Give me impact. Give me something that feels good to do. Give me something that makes the story hit harder because I was part of it.
Mixtape does not do that. The gameplay does not need the player. And when your gameplay does not need the player, the story really has to step up.
But as we have already discussed, it does not.
Graphics
Visually, Mixtape has a bit of an identity crisis.
The characters are animated like they are in a stop motion movie, or claymation, basically a Spider Verse movie.
The issue is that while the characters are stuttering around at what looks like 24 frames per second, the rest of the world is perfectly smooth. The background, the camera movement, the environments, all of that can feel much smoother than the characters themselves. And the contrast is jarring.
Something needed to be done to make the world and characters feel more visually connected. You could still have the characters animate at a lower frame rate. But maybe limit the background to something closer to 48 frames per second so it still feels smoother than the characters, but not so disconnected from them.
Even funnier, there are moments where the characters seem to forget they are supposed to be animated that way and start moving perfectly smooth.
Outside of that, I do not have a ton of complaints about the graphics. The game has some nice visual ideas. I liked the changing perspectives. I liked some of the old camera effects. I liked the way it tried to use different visual styles to communicate memory and nostalgia.
Sound
The voice acting is good.
All of the characters sound exactly like you would expect them to sound. They fit their stereotypes completely, and the performances are well done. Even if I did not care about the story they were telling, I do not think the actors were the problem.
Not let's talk about Mixtapes Mixtape…. (its soundtrack). This is the thing I keep seeing people praise over and over again. And yes, the soundtrack is good.
Of course it is good. It is packed with big licensed songs from well known artists. DEVO, Roxy Music, The Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Joy Division, The Cure, and more. The music is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
But if you take the music out of Mixtape, what is left? Because the thing so many reviews are praising is not really something Mixtape created. The legs this game is standing on are not even its own.
If I made you a mixtape of Mixtape and handed it to you, you would not think, “Oh, this is from that Mixtape Game!”
You would just think, “Hey, this is a mix of great songs.”
The premise of the game, music being tied to memory, is good. But the delivery fails. When you hear one of these songs again, I do not think you are going to think about Mixtape. You are going to think about the actual song, the actual band, or your own memories with it.
That is where I want to contrast this with Guardians of the Galaxy.
That game also used a bunch of hit songs. But it went further. It created an entire fictional rock band, the Star Lord Band, with original music that belongs to that game. When you hear those songs, you think of Guardians of the Galaxy.
That is the difference.
When I hear DEVO, I am not going to think about skating down a hill in Mixtape.
I am just going to think about DEVO.
Final Verdict
So, is Mixtape worth your time?
No.
The first 10 minutes had me excited. The music was great. The opening was stylish. The gameplay was simple, but that was fine. I thought I was in for an incredible story.
I was wrong. The only thing that could have saved this game was an incredible story, and it does not have that.
I have never once thought, “Hey, I want to sit down and watch a video game about post graduated teenagers nostalgia dripping, and then maybe throw rocks at a random bottle.”
This is not a good game.
The gameplay isn't there. The story did not connect. The visuals have some good ideas but also feel inconsistent. The soundtrack is good, but mostly because it is borrowing great music from somewhere else.
I would only recommend trying Mixtape if you already have Xbox Game Pass, that way you are not really wasting money on it.
If I were giving scores, this would be a 1 out of 10.
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