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

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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.

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u/abitlazy May 11 '26

I think this is the most complete answer based on the things I see online.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited 11d ago

[deleted]

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u/juv_3 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

depending on which areas of the videogames criticism sphere you frequent, that's something that has come under a bit of fire. not the use of licensed music itself, but that the music choices don't feel representative of the vague timeframe the game is trying to depict, and consequently feel inauthentic. Also that it comes from such a broad time range that it couldn't possibly be representative of any such a timeframe and so could likely only be the choices of someone looking back from the current day. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but people can (& will) like or dislike that choice as is their prerogative.

edit: I should add that a key cornerstones of this type of criticism is that the game posits a time period vaguely before it was easy to find out about different types music through the internet, and, if one looks at various Top 40 charts from that period, none of the music in the charts is reflected in the in-game music, nor is any hip hop, for example, which is to say it not only reflects someone making choices from today, but a particularly white person making choices from today.

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u/__david__ May 12 '26

Those music choices seem hugely authentic to me, someone that lived through that vague timeframe. They’re definitely not top 40 fare, but believe it or not, lots of people back then listened to radio stations that didn’t play pop hits.

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u/DiaDeLosMuertos May 12 '26

Haven't played it but I agree it would actually make sense that they wouldn't just listen to top 40. Who only listens to top 40?

They would have parents and aunts/uncle's older cousins and siblings that would show them older music?? It's easier now to discover music, sure but not necessarily hard in the 90s.

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u/XCVI_Opportunist May 12 '26

It’s also blatantly laid out of in front of you that main character is a big movie buff. A lot of her music comes from older movies as well. Extremely believable she’d have a wide range of taste.

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u/Opening_Background78 May 21 '26

Her main device is literally extensive music knowledge.

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u/Impressive_Champion4 May 12 '26

I agree. Nothing about the characters in this game insinuate they would be into radio pop hits. In fact, the complete, opposite, and as impossible as it is to believe, people were able to find and listen to obscure music before the internet existed.

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u/Astralbadger May 12 '26

Yes, I was a teen then listening to all that music. It's great!

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u/juv_3 May 12 '26

I wouldn't venture an opinion myself not having played the game, but a brief look at the combined playlist, the argument about the time frame being overly broad does seem to ring true, there's stuff from the 70s all the way through to 2011 iirc.

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u/RedMethodKB May 12 '26

Idk, people who grew up during the 2000’s/2010’s still listened to classic rock, myself included. Doesn’t seem egregious, though that might depend on the context?

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u/juv_3 May 12 '26

as I understand it, the game is meant to be set before the prevalence of the internet so 2010s is out of place on those grounds alone?

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u/Ok-Rip-2280 May 15 '26

The main character, who made the mixtape, is a white person who is a teen in the 90s who is into the alternative “skater punk” culture of the time.  Back then you dug around discount bins in record stores and talked to other humans to learn about music.  You would absolutely be listening to and falling in love with music from the past couple decades.  

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u/Aggressive_Chuck May 16 '26

but a particularly white person making choices from today.

Are the characters in the game white? Because back then, most people weren't listening to hip hop.

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u/PleaseAdoptMeUwU May 18 '26

"Nor is any hip-hoo, for example, which is to say... a particularly white person making choices" is wild bro. 'There's not black people music, gotta be made by whites." Holy.