So much has happened in gaming since then, but Xbox’s showcase at last year’s Summer Game Fest was one for the history books. With Xbox down but not quite out, it needed to come out swinging. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has continued this change in fortune, while the green team will be hoping this really is its year, and Avowed, South of Midnight, and possibly even Fable can make good on the broken promises of Starfield, Redfall, and so many others.
And yet, when I think back to that showcase, the first game that comes to mind is Mixtape. It’s a small game, unlikely the standout for anyone else besides the developers’ mothers, but it’s one of my most anticipated games all the same. Sure, Doom looks excellent. Perfect Dark convinced me it’s worth holding my breath for. Gears of War isn’t dead.
Especially with PlayStation ducking out of the summer festivities (but then dropping Astro Bot a couple of months later), Xbox was the undoubted winner of sunburn season. I’m waiting to see whether it can finally string some hits together to build momentum. But Mixtape is still the game for me.
The Artful Escape Casts A Long Shadow
I started working at TheGamer in February 2021, and just seven months later, The Artful Escape (made by the developers of Mixtape) arrived. I reviewed it, was enraptured by its cosmic chaos and endless appetite for creativity, and gave it 4.5/5. One of the great things about this job, perhaps my favourite thing, is the way you get to fall in love with games. You’re always up on the latest releases, and get to dive in deep. I’ve written many times about my drive to keep up with the latest releases in gaming, and The Artful Escape is a fruit of that endeavour. Better yet, it’s the first fruit.
There are plenty of games I now count amongst my favourites that I only played because my job is to play video games and then write about them. Immortality, 1000xResist, Mouthwashing, Chicory, The Forgotten City, Citizen Sleeper, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, and Slay the Princess all fall into this category. But The Artful Escape was the first one that I fell hard for, and thus it holds a special place in my heart.
While The Forgotten City released two months before The Artful Escape, I didn’t play it until two months later, as a buzzer beater for my 2021 Game of the Year List.
Ever since The Artful Escape, I’ve been waiting to see what the excellently named Beethoven & Dinosaur do next, and that’s Mixtape. We don’t know an awful lot about it, but ‘from the developers of The Artful Escape’ carries a lot of weight. I’d argue it carries considerably more weight for a small indie studio than it does for a triple-A behemoth made by a thousand people. The people who made [insert triple-A behemoth] might not have had a hand in shaping it. The Mixtape team carrying over from The Artful Escape almost certainly did.
Mixtape Is The Skating Game We Need This Year
But it’s not just the carry over from The Artful Escape. While I loved the artistic themes and psychedelic colour palette of the studio’s debut, I’m not much of a music buff. In fact, it made me think about going to watch live music far more than playing an instrument – something I then hadn’t done for over a year thanks to the pandemic. While Mixtape is still clearly musical, as indicated by its name and the trailer highlighting its ’90s soundtrack of The Smashing Pumpkins, Devo, and Joy Division, it seems to be more about skateboarding.
Now that is something I can relate to. I skirted around the edges of skater culture in my youth, never quite learning how to board but following the professional scene closely, mostly motivated by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It’s still my favourite event to watch at the Olympics and pretend I understand the scores. The Mixtape trailer places a heavy emphasis on skating in gameplay, as well as skitching (being dragged by a car on a skateboard), and other reckless activities tangentially related to skater culture, like riding in a shopping cart.
We also see a more traditional road trip amidst romantic fireworks, and even one sequence where the characters float through a field. It’s a game about travelling, and exploring different worlds was a key element of The Artful Escape’s creativity. However, while The Artful Escape was pure 2D, Mixtape also seems to add some light 3D exploration into the equation, which could make for a more absorbing and expansive experience. It’s one of this year’s little indies that could that I desperately want to succeed, and it might end up being the standout of the Xbox showcase after all.
Mixtape is a narrative tale from the creators of The Artful Escape. It follows three high-schoolers on the cusp of graduating, who set off for their final party together. Using a mixtape of iconic songs as a base, you experience the highs and lows of their lives so far.
- Released
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2025
- Developer
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Beethoven and Dinosaur