Mixtape game preview: Soundtracking teenage life
Channeling 90s nostalgia through music, memory and teenage longing
There’s no shortage of games built around nostalgia. Gone Home, one of the earliest ‘walking simulators’, followed a young woman uncovering secrets during a return to her family home in 1995; Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture transformed a deserted 80s English village into a melancholic John Wyndham-esque mystery; Lake cast players as a middle-aged woman escaping corporate burnout by delivering post in her sleepy Oregonian hometown in 1986.
Mixtape comfortably belongs in that lineage. Set in a fictional Californian town during the 90s, it blends the coming-of-age intimacy of Life Is Strange with the fragmented storytelling and inventive mini games of What Remains Of Edith Finch. Across the final days of high school, a tight-knit group of teenagers skate, fall in and out of love, and dream of escaping smalltown stagnation. The story unfolds through a series of short vignettes, all tied together by a carefully curated soundtrack featuring artists including The Smashing Pumpkins, Portishead and The Chi-Lites. Songs arrive as stylised needle drops, introduced directly by protagonist Stacy as she breaks the fourth wall.
Mixtape weaves its music through a string of simple but effective mini games, from skateboarding through suburban streets to sharing an awkward first kiss beside a sunset-dappled lake. One sequence sends the characters soaring into the sky, leaning into the heightened dreamlike logic of teenage emotion. The game’s structure appears deliberately lean and tightly paced, more interested in capturing fleeting moments than sprawling drama. Whether it can turn that hazy atmosphere into something more lasting remains to be seen, but its blend of music, melancholy and youthful escapism already feels sharply observed.
Mixtape is out now on PC, Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.