Mixtape publisher responds to social media fallout | indy100

Mixtape - Official Launch Trailer

IGN / VideoElephant

Mixtape publisher Annapurna Interactive has responded on social media to the fallout that's happened about its game.

Mixtape is a coming-of-age story about three friends who embark on one final adventure together before one of them moves away. Players play through a number of different memories with a huge focus on the licensed soundtrack and it features stop-motion inspired animation similar to the style seen in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

The game received rave reviews from critics but it's been a bit of a different story among gamers.

Some agree with critics in that it tells a fantastic story and pushes what coming-of-age tales can tell whereas others have said they don't feel like it's a game at all with very basic gameplay and no consequence of doing things wrong.

There has been a lot of back and forth between gamers about this on social media and Annapurna Interactive has addressed this with a couple of posts on X / Twitter.

The first one saw Annapurna post a gif of a scene from Mixtape with one of the characters reacting to fireworks going off, quoting a Tweet that said: "Enjoy the video games. Don't let anyone ruin your vibe. ♥️"

Shortly after, Annapurna then posted a Tweet that said: "Zero context here. Just a random gif."

There's a sense of a bit of sarcasm in the caption as the gif says: "Everybody love everybody. Come on!"

There had already been a bit of chatter about Mixtape online but it all really kicked off after a post on X / Twitter from Christina Tasty where she showed an unedited three minute gameplay segment with commentary.

It shows one of the characters running through a scene and Christina says she does not press anything throughout its duration, saying there is barely any gameplay and no consequence to anything.

Similar to this, Michael Does Life posted a viral 30-second video which starts by him asking "where's the gameplay" in the scene where the three friends are escaping from the cops in a shopping cart that's going downhill at speed.

He holds his hands up to show he's "hands-free" throughout it, saying "you don't even have to play it".

But others have said the "imagination" of the game and story really connected with them, especially as it evoked feelings of nostalgia.

And there's a clip which counters the claims that players do not have to do anything, showing what happens when you don't use a controller for 30 seconds in a particular segment - and it shows the controllable character just standing there.

Mixtape is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC.

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