Mixtape review: Aussie game is a powerful ode to music and the freedom of youth

Music can be transformative. For young people especially, it can be identity-shaping and confidence-driving. Mixtape, the latest adventure from the Melbourne-based studio Beethoven and Dinosaur, is a deep exploration of the power of music and how it changes the small-town lives of three friends – Stacy Rockford, Van Slater and Cassandra Morino.

The game is defined by music video-like stanzas of classic tracks, from grungy Australian hits to spacey tunes hailing from the US, UK and beyond. It’s reflective of Stacy’s own desires to be a music supervisor, someone who soundtracks screen media with an artful and considered touch.

And while the tunes are the focus – with various eye-catching segments soundtracked by popular tunes – Mixtape leaves plenty of room for the growth of its trio of protagonists, as they chart a turning point in their shared lives: the end of school and the journey into the adult world.

Mixtape’s idealised, magical version of youth

It’s more than likely that players won’t have experienced the kind of young adulthood explored in Mixtape. The game presents an idealised, almost magical version of youth – nights of freedom charting streets in shopping trolleys, bounding through fields with the wind at your back and late nights spent drinking in abandoned houses in the woods.

Mixtape is a fantasy of what this period of life can be – or at least, how it can feel. Stacy, Van and Cassandra are the kings and queens of the world, experiencing such freedom, elation and joy that in some imagined sequences, they’re flying and leaving the real world far behind.

Playing loose with reality allows Mixtape to become something more affecting, a universal exploration of how it can feel to be young – to be excited about the future and where it may lead, to be ready for new experiences and people, and to be face what it means to enter another world.

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Tapping into teenage feelings

Stacy is a fantastic protagonist to explore these feelings with and she’s as layered, flawed and interesting as she needs to be. In many ways, she represents teenage folly, believing she can have it all with an arrogance that makes her grating.

But Stacy also desperately wants to be loved in a way that’s quite endearing, and she wants to keep her group of friends together, despite her ambitions to move away to another city. In this, Mixtape captures the push and pull facing young people: the ambition and desire to be free, but also the desire to keep friends and childhood stalwarts close. Or to put it another way, the need for change alongside the desire for everything to stay the same.

Mixtape is, in large part, about the inevitability of that journey. It’s a game about the reluctance to face the end, as much as it’s about the end itself.

Stacy, Van and Cassandra find themselves on a great precipice at the opening of Mixtape, knowing it’s their last night all together before time and opportunities split them apart. So, they vow to live out their dreams, and have the greatest last night together – the night to end all nights.

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A well-curated soundtrack

Mixtape leans into a mix of curated classic rock and alternative music to add layers of depth and meaning to its story. Stand-outs on the soundtrack include Yesterday’s Hero by John Paul Young, That’s Good by Devo and Glory Box by Portishead – to name just a few.

Mixtape is as much about the freedom of youth as it is the power of music. Stacy uses it as a way of understanding the world, and so it becomes a reflection of her inner thoughts and feelings. In this way, each song comes to define and support the events of the overarching, emotion-heavy narrative.

In one particular sequence, her pain and frustration is shown in her song choice, soundtracking an introspective and melancholic walk. In another, her panic and rush during a heart-pounding chase is accompanied by heavy drums and a peppy beat.

For anyone who grew up listening to particular tunes and now associates them with that particular time in their life, this is a love letter to that connection, exploring how music can be an emotional outlet, and also come to define people on their individual journeys.

An artful escape

Across its short runtime, Mixtape makes a deep impact.

As much as it’s about the story of three friends trying to savour their last moments together, it also speaks to the great promise of growing up and how wide-open, beautiful and terrifying the world once seemed then. It’s about growing as a person and what that can mean for the people left behind.

Mixtape is also about the power of music and how it can help with these fears – how it can be a companion, express inner doubts, excitement and ambition, speak to the soul, or just provide an artful escape.

In this exploration, Mixtape is simply magical.

Mixtape launches for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 on 7 May.

A PC code for Mixtape was provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

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