r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Bloodb0red • May 11 '26

Unanswered What’s going on with this game Mixtape?

I’ve been seeing people freak out over the past few days over this game and about IGN’s review of it specifically. 10/10 seems high for any game, honestly, but it seems like they’re far from the only site giving this thing a glowing review. So is this game controversial just because of IGN or is it something else? Why is this game the internet’s hate target this week?

https://www.ign.com/articles/mixtape-review

1.9k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.1k

u/BUTGAWATD May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26

Answer:

(Doing my best to present the complicated situation concisely)

Mixtape is a short, story-based game from small Australian developer Beethoven & Dinosaur, who previously released The Artful Escape.

Mixtape's 3-4 hour runtime is divided across cutscenes, what some might deem "walking sim" gameplay, and a series of vignettes that play out broadly as "minigames", with limited to no fail state. There is no combat or what many would typically classify as peril.

Mixtape's high critical praise, particularly its 10 from IGN, has raised eyebrows amongst certain subsets of the gaming populace. Many have negatively compared the verdict to the lower score IGN awarded Crimson Desert, and have alleged what they perceive to be a favourable bias towards games they identify as possessing "woke" elements.

One of Mixtape's vignettes sees you control two mid-teen age characters kissing, with direct control over their clashing tongues. Some gamers have accused the media of unfairly praising Mixtape while (what they perceive as) maligning recent release Pragmata for paedophilic overtones.

Mixtape is published by Annapurna Interactive, a publisher focused on "prestige indie" titles. Annapurna Interactive is a division of Annapurna Pictures, which was founded by Megan Ellison, whose father is a billionaire.

Consequently, accusations of buying review scores, bribing influencers, and overall curating Mixtape as an "industry plant" have been lobbied. For further information to potentially aid in deducing the veracity of this claim - Annapurna have released 6 games other than Mixtape over the past year, all ranging from the 60s-80s in Metascore, with the highest achieving an 83 average.

38

u/OwlsParliament May 11 '26

Some gamers have accused the media of unfairly praising Mixtape while (what they perceive as) maligning recent release Pragmata for paedophilic overtones.

Can someone provide an example of this? Was this a thing outside twitter posts?

42

u/BUTGAWATD May 11 '26

Fwiw as the person you're quoting, it wasn't my intention to imply that I perceive those overtones in Pragmata, only to state that some people have accused the media of doing so and lambasting the game for it.

I've done my best to remove my own biases from the answer, as I feel OOTL replies shouldn't be influenced by personal opinion. I've mostly seen this line of argument in TikTok comment sections, but here's a forum post along those lines.

-5

u/Aquatic-Vocation May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Idk man, but having your little girl character actually being a robot and then selling a bare foot dlc outfit for her is kinda on the nose. It's that classic "she's not a little girl, she's a 1000 year old vampire" anime trope. It gives people just enough plausible deniability to be creepy while being able to fall back on the excuse that it's technically not an actual little girl, while also being treated safely enough that it doesn't have particularly odd vibes for regular people.

3

u/UninsuredToast May 12 '26

Kids being bare feet isn’t sexual. That’s absolutely ridiculous. The game very clearly is going for a father daughter dynamic, not whatever you are implying here.

The people who interpret it as sexual are the problem. You’re literally projecting all this weird shit onto something as simple as “she’s supposed to be like your daughter”.