There are games where there is almost no gameplay, but that doesn't make them worse. What Remains of Edith Finch once stitched together a dozen mini-games with a walking simulator - and it became one of the most powerful experiences of a generation. Mixtape works on the same principle: you walk through locations, press buttons, listen, watch, feel. Only if Edith Finch was about death, then Mixtape is about parting with what is still alive but already leaving. In terms of vibe, it's more like Night in the Woods: the same bright longing for your former self, the same carefully curated soundtrack, the same firm confidence that in fifteen minutes you'll be crying to a song you've never even heard before.

The plot is as simple as three chords. The last evening before graduation. Three friends - Stacy, Van, and Cassandra - are getting ready for the final party, reminiscing along the way about how they ended up this way. Stacy regularly breaks the fourth wall in the style of "Ferris Bueller": looks into the camera, explains what's about to play, tells why this track ended up on her farewell mixtape. It turns out to be simultaneously a personal playlist, a diary, and a music video. And that's where the main thing begins.

Because some mini-games are literally interactive music videos. You drive along the night coast and conduct fireworks to Roxy Music - each explosion in time. You sneak with toilet paper to the principal's house to Devo. You rush to save a friend to John Paul Young. Each episode is stitched together with its song so tightly that it's impossible to separate them - like tongues in another mini-game (brilliant, by the way). Mixtape is not a game with a good soundtrack. It's a soundtrack turned into a game, done in a way that only people for whom music truly matters can. And if you're one of those... well, one of us - I myself, you know, am something of a mixtape specialist - you simply must play this.

Yes, the optimization is terrible - as if Mixtape was made not on UE5 but on a limping Unity. For a game that should hit perfectly in sync with the music, this is especially frustrating - you catch the wave, but the engine catches something else. But everything else here is done with such love that any complaints get stuck in your throat.

Mixtape takes you back to that summer after school, when ahead was a big, unknown, and exciting adventure. When the old life was over, the new one hadn't started yet, and the most important task was not to lose the cassette on which you had been recording the perfect Side A for three weeks. It's a very fragile feeling, and Mixtape holds onto it for all its three hours. Play it, especially if you have Game Pass. Especially since summer is coming, and it's important to enter it with the right mood.

#played_ps5