Melbourne indie studio Beethoven & Dinosaur has finally put a date on the calendar. Mixtape, the studio's long-anticipated follow-up to its BAFTA-winning debut, will launch on May 7, 2026 across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, Steam, and the Epic Games Store, as reported by Engadget. For Xbox subscribers, it lands day one on Xbox Game Pass.
The date had been a long time coming. Mixtape was originally revealed during the 2024 Xbox Showcase with a 2025 target, but the studio pushed it into 2026. In a statement that only a band-turned-game-developer could write, the team said they were "putting the knobs on" — meaning the game was nearly finished but needed final polish. Now, with a hard date locked in, the wait is almost over.
One piece of news arrived alongside the date: a Nintendo Switch 2 version has been added to the platform lineup, confirmed during the latest Nintendo Indie World showcase. It is a notable expansion for a game that had previously been positioned primarily as a PC and current-gen console title.
Idleness as a design philosophy
For those unfamiliar, Mixtape is a narrative adventure set in 1990s Northern California, following three friends on their final night of high school. The player moves through a series of vignettes — skateboarding, sneaking out, crashing a party, taking photos at an abandoned theme park — each drawn from the characters' formative memories and set to a specific licensed song.
Game director Johnny Galvatron, who previously fronted Australian rock band the Galvatrons before moving into game development, spoke with Engadget about what made the concept difficult to execute. "Idleness is hard to explore as a video game," he said, "and one of the interesting things about being a teenager is you just hang out a lot, and sometimes it just sucks. So I love that we made a game that shows that idleness."
That philosophy sets Mixtape apart from the action-reward loop that drives most commercial games. It is a deliberate choice, and one that carries some commercial risk — but it is also exactly the kind of creative bet that Annapurna Interactive, the game's publisher, has built its reputation on backing.
A soundtrack with genuine credentials
The licensed music is central to the whole experience. The confirmed track list draws from some of the most influential punk and alternative acts of the late 20th century: DEVO, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Roxy Music, Lush, and The Cure, among others. Securing that many legacy licences for a relatively small indie game is no small feat, and it signals that Annapurna is backing the project with genuine resources.
Beethoven & Dinosaur earned its credibility the hard way. The Melbourne studio's debut game, The Artful Escape, won the BAFTA for Artistic Achievement in 2022, beating out major AAA productions in the process. That pedigree matters when pitching labels on the idea of threading Joy Division through a coming-of-age adventure game.
The real question, as always with music-driven games, is whether the gameplay holds up between the songs. Previews from Summer Game Fest 2025 were broadly positive, with several outlets calling it among the most memorable demos of the event. Whether the full release sustains that across its entire runtime is something Australian players will be able to judge for themselves come May 7. You can add the game to your wishlist now on Steam.