Mixtape Wins Game of the Year at the AGDAs, and Half of Gaming Is Mad About It

Before anyone loses it: no, Mixtape didn’t win The Game Awards. Those nominees aren’t even out yet. It won Game of the Year at the 2026 Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs) in Melbourne on 7 October, the Aussie industry’s own awards night. And it didn’t just win the top prize; it swept all three categories it was nominated in, taking Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Sound Design too.

It’s made by Melbourne studio Beethoven & Dinosaur (the team behind BAFTA winner The Artful Escape) and published by Annapurna Interactive. Which is why plenty of players are scratching their heads, because Mixtape has been one of the most argued-about games of the year.

What is Mixtape?

It’s a coming-of-age story about three friends on their last night together before they all go their separate ways. On the way to a party, a playlist pulls them into dreamlike replays of their teenage memories: skating, sneaking out, hitting baseballs, a fireworks show from the back seat of a car, a first kiss. It’s done in a striking stop-motion style, and the soundtrack is stacked: DEVO, The Cure, Joy Division, Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees and more.

It came out on 7 May 2026 on PC (NZ$29.99 on Steam), and it’s also on Game Pass.

Why critics love it

Critics went nuts for it. It sits at 87 on Metacritic, and a stack of outlets gave it a perfect 10 at launch, making it one of the best-reviewed games of the year. The AGDA judges called it “a triumph in virtual storytelling”, praising its visual identity and the way the music drives the whole thing. Director Johnny Galvatron says the project started with wanting to make a game around DEVO.

Most Steam players are happy too. It’s sitting at Very Positive, with about 88% of nearly 8,700 reviews recommending it.

Why a lot of players don’t

The backlash kicked off almost straight after launch, and it’s loud:

• It’s short. You can finish it in around three hours.
• Not much “game”. A lot of that time is cutscenes, there are no branching choices, and there are no fail states. A big ending sequence, a nod to the Ferris Bueller run home, keeps going even if you put the controller down. That clip did the rounds, and “it’s an interactive movie” became the go-to line.
• The scores. Perfect 10s for a three-hour game with that little to do rubbed people the wrong way, especially when other games out the same month scored lower. Metacritic’s user score got review-bombed down to 6.3 within a week.
• The rest: some players find the lead character unlikable, some reckon a game with that many licensed songs isn’t really “indie”, and there’s that tongue-controlled kissing minigame.

So how did it win?

Context matters. The AGDAs are run by the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association and only cover Australian-made games, so Mixtape wasn’t up against the year’s blockbusters. Its Game of the Year rivals were Aether & Iron, Go-Go Town! and Momento. Industry judges also tend to reward craft (art direction, sound, how well a game pulls off what it set out to do) more than hours of gameplay or replay value. On that measure, a game that cleaned up the art and sound awards winning overall isn’t a huge shock.

It’s not done either. Mixtape is up for Best Indie Game and Best Soundtrack at the Golden Joystick Awards on 11 November, so expect this argument to run all the way to The Game Awards.

Our take

Look, it’s gorgeous. The art is stunning, the soundtrack is elite, and nobody’s arguing it didn’t earn the art and sound gongs. But Game of the Year? For three hours where you mostly watch, can’t fail and can’t change anything? That’s a stretch.

And that’s the real problem: Mixtape isn’t really a game, it’s a story. A beautiful one, but you’re along for the ride rather than playing it. Nothing you do changes how it goes, and the game will happily finish its big finale without you. It’s an interactive film, a music video you can hold. There’s nothing wrong with that, but Game of the Year should go to something you actually play.

To be fair, this one says as much about what awards value as it does about the game. Judges reward vision and polish. Players reward what they actually do with a controller in their hands. Both are allowed to be right. And it’s still a win for a Melbourne studio, which is good news for the local scene, even if we’d have handed the top prize to an actual game.

Have you played it? Masterpiece, or the most expensive skip button in gaming? Fight it out in the comments or on the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• AGDAs: Beethoven & Dinosaur’s Mixtape wins Game of the Year (official announcement, judges’ and director’s quotes)
• r/GamesAreLife thread
• WellPlayed (clean sweep, Game Pass, Golden Joysticks nominations)
• Glitched (Game of the Year nominees)
• Mixtape on Steam (release, price, user reviews)
• NME and VICE (player backlash, Metacritic user score)