Mixtape, the 1990s-set musical adventure game from Beethoven & Dinosaur and Annapurna Interactive, has just picked up its first Game of the Year award. Mixtape released in May to mostly positive reviews from critics (including some perfect scores), landing it with a solid 85 overall rating on review aggregate site OpenCritic. The reaction to Mixtape from the general gaming public has been a little more mixed, however.
While Mixtape currently has a “Very Positive” overall rating on Steam, its Metacritic user score is a 5.9. The perfect 10/10 scores that Mixtape received from some outlets seemingly fueled backlash against the game that it otherwise may not have endured. People hit its Metacritic page with overwhelmingly negative review scores, with 1/10s, 2/10s, 3/10s, and even 0/10s. These negative user reviews often criticize Mixtape‘s level of interactivity, story, and subject matter, with one 0/10 review going as far as to call Mixtape “cringe millennial slop.” Clearly, Mixtape is a divisive game, but that hasn’t stopped it from picking up its first Game of the Year award.
Mixtape Just Won 3 Awards
The Australian Game Developers’ Awards have announced their winners, with Mixtape picking up Game of the Year, Excellence in Art, and Excellence in Sound Design — all three categories it was nominated for. Mixtape has also been nominated for Best Indie Game and Best Soundtrack at the Golden Joystick Awards, with winners to be announced on November 11. The nominees for the Geoff Keighley-hosted Game Awards in December have yet to be revealed, but considering the game’s critical reception, it’s likely that it will be nominated in some categories there as well.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
The Game Awards are in a weird spot this year in general. Besides the potential for divisive games like Mixtape drawing online negativity, Grand Theft Auto 6 is creating a unique problem. GTA 6‘s release date falls outside the normal cutoff window for new releases to be eligible for The Game Awards. For example, the 2025 Game Awards nominees were revealed on November 17 last year, and GTA 6 doesn’t release until November 19 of this year. GTA 6 is easily the most highly-anticipated new game of the year, and is potentially one of the, if not the, most highly-anticipated game of all time, and so, if it’s left out, it will likely create even more controversy.
It will be interesting to see how The Game Awards GTA 6 situation is handled, but in the meantime, one has to wonder what categories Mixtape could potentially be nominated for at this year’s show. The competition for Game of the Year is probably too high, especially if GTA 6 is thrown in the mix, but Best Art Direction, Best Score and Music, and Best Independent Game all seem like locks for Mixtape to make an appearance. That doesn’t mean that the game will necessarily win these awards, but one has to imagine it will at least be nominated.
If you are curious about Mixtape and want to see which side of the fence you fall on when it comes to the game, it’s available to play at a relatively low cost. You can purchase it outright for $19.99, or you can play it with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. One month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs more than Mixtape does, but it will also let you play a bunch of other games, including recent hits that might also find themselves nominated for various year-end awards like Well Dweller and Gears of War: E-Day, just to name a couple.
- Released
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May 7, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Beethoven & Dinosaur
