Mixtape, the 1990s-set musical adventure from Beethoven & Dinosaur and publisher Annapurna Interactive, has its first Game of the Year trophy on the shelf. The win came at the Australian Game Developers’ Awards, where the game swept every category it was nominated in.
Three awards, three nominations
Mixtape was up for three awards and won all of them:
- Game of the Year
- Excellence in Art
- Excellence in Sound Design
That makes it a clean sweep rather than a single lucky category, and it lines up with how critics received the game. Mixtape launched in May to mostly positive reviews, including a handful of perfect scores, and currently sits at an 85 overall rating on OpenCritic. If you want to keep track of everything around the game, we collect it all in our Mixtape news hub.
Players are split on it
The reception outside of reviews is a different story. On Steam, Mixtape holds a “Very Positive” overall rating, but its Metacritic user score sits at 5.9. The game’s page was hit with a wave of extremely low user scores – 3/10s, 2/10s, 1/10s and even 0/10s – with the perfect review scores from some outlets apparently acting as a trigger for the backlash.
Those negative user reviews tend to focus on three things: how interactive the game actually is, its story, and its subject matter. One 0/10 review went as far as calling Mixtape “cringe millennial slop.” In other words, this is a genuinely divisive release, and the award haul hasn’t changed that.
What’s still ahead
Mixtape is also nominated at the Golden Joystick Awards in two categories – Best Indie Game and Best Soundtrack – with winners announced on November 11. Nominees for The Game Awards in December haven’t been revealed yet.
This year’s Game Awards also carry one unusual complication that has nothing to do with Mixtape: Grand Theft Auto 6 lands outside the usual eligibility window for new releases. For comparison, the 2025 Game Awards nominees were revealed on November 17, while GTA 6 doesn’t release until November 19.
How to try it yourself
If you want to find out which side of the divide you land on, Mixtape is cheap to get into. You can buy it outright for $19.99 on Steam and the Xbox store, or play it through an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. A single month of Game Pass Ultimate costs more than the game itself, but it also gets you other recent releases such as Well Dweller and Gears of War: E-Day. More details are on the official Mixtape site.
FAQ
At the Australian Game Developers’ Awards it won Game of the Year, Excellence in Art and Excellence in Sound Design – all three categories it was nominated for.
It was developed by Beethoven & Dinosaur and published by Annapurna Interactive. It’s a musical adventure game set in the 1990s.
Critics were mostly positive, with some perfect scores and an 85 overall rating on OpenCritic. User reception is more split: “Very Positive” on Steam, but a 5.9 user score on Metacritic after a flood of very low ratings.
It’s up for Best Indie Game and Best Soundtrack at the Golden Joystick Awards, with winners announced on November 11. The Game Awards nominees haven’t been revealed yet.
It’s $19.99 to buy outright, or you can play it with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription.