• Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios has confirmed it’s making an open-world Middle-earth RPG
• The Prague-based studio announced the project on social media but has shared no story details, characters, or release window
• Embracer Group CEO Phil Rogers confirmed the game on a post-earnings call, alongside a second new Kingdom Come title
• The Lord of the Rings IP will become part of Embracer’s newly formed Fellowship Entertainment division, set to list in Stockholm in 2027
• The announcement arrives as Middle-earth is having a genuine moment, with new films, a Stephen Colbert-penned movie, and Rings of Power Season 3 all in the pipeline

The dream of a truly great open-world Lord of the Rings game just got a lot more real. Warhorse Studios — the Prague-based team behind the critically acclaimed Kingdom Come: Deliverance series — has officially confirmed it is developing an open-world RPG set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, ending months of swirling speculation about what the studio had planned next.

The announcement came through the studio’s social channels with characteristic understatement. “You might have heard the rumours, it’s time to reveal what we are working on,” Warhorse posted on X. “An open world Middle-earth RPG. A new Kingdom Come adventure. We’re excited to tell you more when the time is right.”

https://x.com/WarhorseStudios/status/2057008469920624696

That’s essentially all they’re saying for now — and the “when the time is right” caveat makes clear that a full reveal is still a ways off. No characters, no story details, no release window, no gameplay footage. Just the confirmation that it exists and that the studio is excited about it.

That’s enough, honestly. The reaction has been immediate.

Why Warhorse Makes a Lot of Sense for This

Warhorse isn’t a random pick for a project this significant. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 launched earlier this year to strong reviews and won the BAFTA award for Narrative — a serious credential for a studio being handed one of the most beloved fictional universes ever created. The franchise has also sold over five million copies in its first year, according to Embracer’s own financial reporting. These are developers who know how to build dense, historically grounded worlds with real weight to them.

Warhorse communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling put it plainly on LinkedIn: “Just thinking about one of the biggest and most beloved IPs in the world being developed here in Prague is honestly mind-blowing.”

Embracer Group CEO Phil Rogers confirmed the project on a post-earnings call, and added that Warhorse is also working on another entry in the Kingdom Come franchise — meaning the studio is apparently juggling two major projects simultaneously. Rogers did not specify a development timeline for either game.

The Bigger Picture: Embracer’s Middle-earth Play

This announcement is also a piece of something larger happening inside Embracer Group. The company confirmed it is planning one more corporate spin-off, with the Lord of the Rings IP and Kingdom Come: Deliverance — alongside other major franchises — set to become part of a newly formed division called Fellowship Entertainment. That entity is slated to list on the Stockholm stock exchange in 2027. Embracer has also flagged plans to explore additional partnerships across its portfolio of properties, which includes Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Saints Row, Red Faction, Thief, and TimeSplitters.

In other words, the Lord of the Rings isn’t just a game project for Embracer — it’s a cornerstone of a whole new entertainment division.

When and Where Could This Game Be Set?

Here’s where things get genuinely interesting for fans, because Middle-earth’s timeline offers an almost overwhelming number of options — and none of them are obviously wrong.

The War of the Ring is the most familiar territory, but it comes loaded with problems. Frodo has to carry the Ring. Aragorn has to become king. Sauron has to fall in a very specific way. A player-driven story set during those events would constantly be bumping up against canonical outcomes, which limits creative freedom considerably.

The Second Age — the era that Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been exploring — is arguably the most epic option. Númenor, the forging of the Rings, Sauron’s rise as a political manipulator before he became a full dark lord. It’s enormous in scope. The risk is that Rings of Power has already put that world in front of a mass audience, and any game set there would immediately invite comparisons — and would have to navigate some of Tolkien’s most fixed historical events.

The Fourth Age, set after Sauron’s defeat, offers the cleanest creative freedom. The great war is over, the Ring is destroyed, and a new era is beginning. New characters, new conflicts, no Fellowship to work around. The downside is that it could feel untethered from the franchise’s most iconic beats.

The era that arguably makes the most sense for an original RPG, though, is the Angmar conflict — the fall of the northern kingdom of Arnor under the Witch-king’s assault. It has a villain players already understand as important, a sprawling geography of ruined kingdoms and fractured peoples, and just enough distance from the main story that a new protagonist could genuinely matter. Players could be a Ranger, a survivor from one of Arnor’s broken kingdoms, or simply someone caught in the slow collapse of the north. No Frodo to replace. No Aragorn to compete with. Just an original story set in a world fans already love.

Warhorse hasn’t hinted at any of this yet, of course. But given the studio’s track record of building richly detailed historical worlds with morally complex characters — and their clear comfort with settings that aren’t the most obvious choice — it’s hard not to speculate.

Middle-earth Is Having a Moment

The timing of this announcement isn’t incidental. This might genuinely be the best moment in years to be a Tolkien fan. Andy Serkis is returning to direct The Hunt for Gollum. A Stephen Colbert-penned film, Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past, set in the Fourth Age with Sam’s daughter Elanor, is in development. Peter Jackson told Deadline at Cannes that the Tolkien Estate is warming to the idea of potentially opening up rights to previously restricted material like The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales — which would unlock the First Age of Middle-earth for adaptation for the first time. And The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 is set to premiere November 11, 2026 on Prime Video.

A major open-world RPG from the team that just won a BAFTA slots into that landscape like it was always supposed to be there.

Warhorse says they’ll share more “when the time is right.” Given everything else converging around Middle-earth right now, that wait might be shorter than it feels.

The post A Middle-earth RPG Is Coming — But Details Are Scarce appeared first on Cream.

• Lego officially revealed the Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith set, clocking in at 8,278 pieces — its biggest LOTR build ever.
• At $649.99, it’s also the most expensive LOTR set to date, beating Rivendell by $150 and over 2,000 pieces.
• The set includes 10 minifigures: Aragorn, Arwen, Gandalf the White, Denethor (with cherry tomatoes), Faramir, Merry, and four Soldiers of Gondor.
• Buyers who purchase between June 1–7 get a free Grond battering ram set, complete with two Orc minifigures.
• It releases June 1 for Lego Insiders and June 4 for the general public, marking the 25th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Gondor has called for aid — and Lego has answered in the biggest way possible. The company officially unveiled the Lego Icons The Lord of the Rings: Minas Tirith set on Tuesday, and it is an absolute beast: 8,278 pieces, 10 minifigures, and a $649.99 price tag that makes it the most ambitious Lord of the Rings set the brand has ever produced.

To put that in perspective, Minas Tirith beats the beloved Rivendell set by more than two thousand pieces and $150. It’s also legitimately one of the largest sets Lego has ever made — bigger than the Millennium Falcon, though it just falls short of the Death Star. According to IGN, it currently ranks as the fourth largest Lego set available, behind only the Eiffel Tower, Titanic, and Death Star builds.

The timing is intentional. This year marks the 25th anniversary of The Fellowship of the Ring, and Lego is treating it as a full celebration — the set is officially subtitled the “25th Anniversary Legacy Collection.”

A City You Can Wear Two Ways

What makes Minas Tirith particularly clever is how it works as both a display piece and a playset. On the outside, the White City is rendered in micro-scale — every tiered ring of Gondor’s capital, from the Great Gate all the way up to the Fountain Court where the White Tree stands. It’s the kind of thing you put on a shelf and let people stare at.

But flip it open, and you get something else entirely. The lowest walls open up to reveal a minifigure-scaled interior, including the streets of the city and — crucially — the Tower Hall, complete with the throne room where Denethor held court as Steward of Gondor before a certain king came home.

Lego calls it a “hybrid microscale and minifigure-scale design,” and it’s a genuinely different approach from what the brand has done with previous Lord of the Rings sets. Rivendell leaned fully into playset territory. Barad-dûr split the difference. Minas Tirith does something more ambitious by making both modes feel intentional rather than compromised.

The finished build measures over 23.5 inches high, 24.5 inches wide, and 14.5 inches deep — so make sure you’ve got shelf space before you commit.

The Minifigure Lineup Is Exactly What You’d Want

Ten minifigures ship with the set, and the selection covers the two big emotional beats of The Return of the King — the siege and the coronation. You get Gandalf the White with Shadowfax, Merry in his Gondorian squire armor, Faramir, and Aragorn decked out in his kingly armor complete with a crown. Arwen is included carrying the banner of the elves from Aragorn’s coronation, which is a lovely touch for a scene that hits hard every single time.

Then there’s Denethor. Yes, he comes with cherry tomatoes. Lego did not miss.

Rounding out the lineup are four Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears, shields, and Gondor helmets — ready to hold the walls, or at least stand impressively on your desk.

The one notable absence: Pippin Took is listed among the minifigures in Lego’s official specs but wasn’t called out in all promotional materials — worth keeping an eye on the official Lego announcement for the final confirmed lineup.

The Free Grond Set Is Worth Moving Fast For

Lego is sweetening the deal with a Gift With Purchase for anyone who buys Minas Tirith between June 1 and 7: the Lego Icons The Lord of the Rings: Grond (set 40893). That’s the legendary wolf-headed battering ram Sauron’s forces used to break down Minas Tirith’s Great Gate during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields — and it’s scaled to pair with the main set, so it fits right into the diorama.

The Grond set includes two Orc minifigures with accessories, and features a functional ram mechanism with that iconic snarling wolf face. It’s a genuinely great companion piece, and if history is any guide, these GWPs move fast. Lego Insiders get early access starting June 1 at 12:01 a.m. — if you want Grond, that’s your window.

The set is not Smart Play compatible, unlike Lego’s recently announced Star Wars sets where that feature has been debuting. For now, Middle-earth remains charmingly analog.

Lego Insiders can purchase starting June 1. Everyone else gets access June 4. If you haven’t joined the Insiders program yet, it’s free — and for a set this size, the three-day head start on the GWP alone makes it worth signing up.

Six hundred and fifty dollars is a serious ask. But for Lord of the Rings fans who’ve been building out this collection since Rivendell, Minas Tirith isn’t just another set. It’s the centerpiece the whole line has been building toward.

The post Lego’s Minas Tirith Is Its Biggest LOTR Set Ever appeared first on Cream.

• Today’s NYT Connections puzzle (#1067) is rated 2.2 out of 5 for difficulty — relatively approachable.
• The purple group is the trickiest, featuring words hidden inside other words.
• All four category themes and their answers are revealed below.
• The puzzle resets at midnight in your local time zone.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle — #1067, dropping May 13, 2026 — is one of the more manageable ones in recent memory. The NYT’s testers rated it a 2.2 out of 5, which means you’ve got a decent shot at a clean solve. That said, the purple group has some wordplay lurking in it that could trip you up if you’re not paying attention.

As always, yellow is your friendliest starting point, purple is where the puzzle makers like to get sneaky, and red herrings are everywhere. Scroll carefully — full answers are below.

Today’s Hints, If You Want to Stay in the Game

Not ready for the full reveal? Here’s a nudge for each category without giving away the goods:

Yellow: Think big, heavy reads — the kind you’d find on a serious bookshelf.

Green: These words all follow “Saint” — and yes, they’re all cities you’ve heard of.

Blue: Each of these pairs with “long” to make a familiar phrase.

Purple: The trickiest of the bunch. You’re looking for words that contain a hidden currency somewhere inside them.

The Full Answers for May 13, 2026

🟨 Substantial book: OPUS, TOME, VOLUME, WORK

The category title does the heavy lifting here — literally. Each of these words can describe a large, weighty piece of written work. A composer’s magnum opus, a dusty tome, the third volume of an encyclopedia. All fit the bill.

🟩 “Saint” cities: MONICA, PAULO, PETERSBURG, SALVADOR

Put “Saint” (or “São” for the Brazilian ones) in front of each word and you’ve got a real city: Santa Monica, São Paulo, Saint Petersburg, and El Salvador — well, San Salvador, to be precise. The puzzle leans on the shared “Saint” prefix across different languages and traditions, which is a classic Connections move.

🟦 “Long” things: DISTANCE, DIVISION, JOHNS, WEEKEND

Each of these completes a familiar compound: long-distance relationship, long division, long johns (those thermal undergarments you pull out every winter), and a long weekend. Worth noting — JOHNS could have easily been mistaken for the green group, given that St. John’s is a city in Newfoundland and Labrador. That’s your red herring of the day.

🟪 Currencies plus a letter: FRANCI, RANDO, REALM, WONK

This is the one that’ll make you stare at the screen for a minute. Each word contains a world currency with an extra letter tacked on: FRANCI hides the franc, RANDO conceals the rand (South Africa’s currency), REALM wraps around the real (Brazil’s), and WONK tucks away the won (South Korea’s). It’s exactly the kind of wordplay the purple category lives for.

A few more red herrings worth flagging: JOHNS, MONICA, PETERSBURG, SALVADOR, PAULO, RANDO, and FRANCI all look like they could be people’s names — which is a fun little misdirection the puzzle editors clearly enjoyed building in.

How Did You Do?

Once you’ve finished, head over to the Connections Bot for a deeper breakdown of your solve — it’ll score your game and track your streak, win rate, and perfect solves over time. And if you want to swap strategies (or commiserate) with fellow solvers, the NYT Games team is active on Threads and WhatsApp.

Tomorrow’s puzzle drops at midnight. Good luck.

The post NYT Connections Answers for May 13, 2026 (#1067) appeared first on Cream.

• Capcom shadow-dropped a free update for Resident Evil Requiem adding the roguelike minigame Leon Must Die Forever
• The mode unlocks after completing the main campaign and sends Leon through 20 increasingly brutal stages against the clock
• Five difficulty ranks are available, including an extreme tier described as “for only the most confident players”
• Resident Evil Requiem has now sold 7 million copies, and paid story DLC is separately in development
• The first-ever Resident Evil amiibo figures — Leon and Grace Ashcroft — are coming July 30

Capcom didn’t send out a press release. There was no countdown timer, no teaser campaign. Fans just woke up, launched Resident Evil Requiem, and found something new waiting for them. The free roguelike minigame Leon Must Die Forever shadow-dropped overnight — and it’s available right now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and GeForce NOW.

The mode is exactly what the name promises. Leon S. Kennedy, the fan-favorite agent who’s been surviving impossible odds since 1998, gets put through hell all over again — this time across 20 stages ripped from the main campaign, now packed with stronger enemy variants, randomized weapons, and a ticking clock that does not care about your feelings. The ultimate goal is reaching Victor, the game’s final boss, and taking him down before time runs out.

“Grace made it home safely, but Leon still has work to do,” reads Capcom’s official description. “Use his enhanced abilities to complete this minigame as fast as possible.”

To access it, you’ll need to have finished Requiem’s main story and updated to version 1.300.000 — a 2.1 GB download on PS5. From there, head to the main menu, select Extra Games, and Leon Must Die Forever is waiting. Death is permanent, the mode warns you upfront, though multiple difficulty settings give players room to calibrate the punishment.

More Than Just Mercenaries

A lot of Resident Evil fans had been quietly hoping this update would bring back The Mercenaries — the beloved arcade-style mode that’s been a franchise staple for decades. That’s not what this is. And honestly? It might be better.

Leon Must Die Forever plays more like a structured roguelike than a pure score-attack mode. As you cut through enemies, you fill an Enhancement Gauge that lets you unlock Leon’s exclusive “enhancer abilities” — passive buffs that affect damage output, survivability, and playstyle. The order of areas and the abilities on offer change with each run, which means no two playthroughs feel identical. There are also special rare monsters that extend your timer when killed, adding a layer of resource management to the chaos.

The spiritual predecessor here isn’t Mercenaries — it’s Ethan Must Die, the punishing bonus mode from Resident Evil 7. And it turns out Capcom had been dropping hints about exactly that for months. Game director Koshi Nakanishi was wearing an Ethan Must Die t-shirt in the video where he first teased the DLC, which in hindsight was about as subtle as a zombie through a window.

Players who’ve already gone hands-on are responding well. Reddit user WinterOf98 called it “harder than Resident Evil 4’s Mercenaries and definitely demands a bit more strategy on your part. Pretty fun.”

“The fast-paced action is distinct from the main story mode, and is packed with replay value,” Capcom said. “Can you make it to the end alive and defeat the boss within the time limit?”

New Costumes, Merch, and Amiibo on the Way

The mode also comes with new cosmetics for Leon, including one costume that puts his Porsche on his head like a bicycle helmet (yes, really) and another that gives him wolf ears and a tail. The internet is already reacting accordingly.

Beyond the game itself, Capcom has launched Leon Must Die Forever merchandise — t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, and pullover hoodies — available through Amazon Merch on Demand via e-Capcom, with US availability expected to follow. And in a separate announcement bundled with this update, Capcom confirmed the first-ever Resident Evil amiibo figures are coming on July 30, featuring both Leon S. Kennedy and Requiem co-protagonist Grace Ashcroft.

The update also adds PC support for the DualSense wireless controller’s adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and motion sensor features — a welcome addition for PC players who’ve been missing out on those tactile extras — along with various bug fixes across all platforms.

More Content Is Coming — But It’ll Take Time

Leon Must Die Forever is free, and Capcom is being upfront that it’s not the main event of Requiem’s post-launch roadmap. A full story expansion is in development — one that fans are hoping will bring back Ada Wong and Chris Redfield and answer some of the lingering mysteries from the main game, including what’s going on with a certain piece of Leon’s jewelry. Game director Koshi Nakanishi confirmed the expansion back in March but noted that “it will take some time, so we ask for your patience.”

That patience seems warranted given where Requiem stands. The game has sold 7 million copies since launching in February 2026, a number strong enough that Capcom raised its profit forecast for the year. IGN gave it a 9/10, writing that it “successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together into the one highly infectious new mutation.” Windows Central’s Jez Corden — self-described die-hard Resident Evil fan — scored it 4.5 out of 5, calling it “another win in what could be one of Capcom’s best product slates in recent memory.”

All of this is landing during the franchise’s 30th anniversary year, which Capcom has been leaning into hard. Thirty years after Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine first walked into that mansion outside Raccoon City, Leon Kennedy is still getting absolutely wrecked by monsters — and apparently, we can’t get enough of watching it happen.

The post Resident Evil Requiem Gets Free ‘Leon Must Die Forever’ Mode appeared first on Cream.

• Warner Bros. Games has dropped the launch trailer for LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, set to Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose”
• The game launches May 22 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC — with a Nintendo Switch 2 version arriving later in 2026
• Deluxe Edition pre-orders get three days of early access starting May 19, plus Arkham and Batman Beyond outfits
• The game blends Batman lore from comics, films, and TV into one original story, with combat inspired by the Arkham series
• A Mayhem Pack DLC featuring the Joker and Harley Quinn is also available, adding a Story Mission and Mayhem Mode

Warner Bros. Games has released the launch trailer for LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, and it is an absolute gift to every Batman fan who’s ever existed. Set to a cinematic remix of Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” — yes, that song, from the Batman Forever soundtrack — the trailer runs through the sprawling, multi-era scope of what TT Games has built, and it looks genuinely spectacular.

The footage spans decades of Batman mythology: scenes inspired by Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman are all in there, stitched together with the LEGO series’ signature humor and brick-built charm. You’ll spot Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Talia al Ghul on the hero side, facing off against a villain roster that includes the Joker, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Two-Face, Ra’s al Ghul, and Bane. Eagle-eyed fans are already freeze-framing every second of it looking for Easter eggs.

One moment already getting attention: a lift from the finale of Batman & Robin, widely considered one of the worst superhero films ever made. The fact that the game isn’t shying away from Batman’s more embarrassing cinematic history is exactly the kind of confident, self-aware move that makes this feel like a real love letter to the character rather than a sanitized greatest-hits package. There’s also a Mr. Freeze boss battle that appears to draw from Gotham Knights, of all places.

How the Game Weaves All the Batman Timelines Together

Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t a direct adaptation of any single Batman film — it’s something more interesting than that. It takes characters, aesthetics, and iconic scenes from across Batman’s entire cinematic and comics history and blends them into one original story. And the blending is clever. Jack Napier — the Burton-era gangster who becomes the Joker — is here, but instead of working for Carl Grissom, he works for Carmine Falcone, who operates out of the Iceberg Lounge from The Batman. Napier also becomes the Red Hood before his Joker transformation, which is a nod to the comics. Similarly, Ra’s al Ghul recruits Bruce Wayne directly, rather than the Henri Ducard alias he used in Batman Begins — which, as any Nolan fan knows, is who he really was all along anyway.

In hands-on time with the game, players get to see Batman and Commissioner Gordon pull Falcone out of the Iceberg Lounge and hand him over to Harvey Dent, before Bruce Wayne later attends the circus from Batman Forever — the one where a young Dick Grayson and the Flying Graysons come face to face with a Tommy Lee Jones-style Two-Face. Three missions covered in two hours of play, which suggests the full game is going to be enormous.

TT Games appears to be leaning hard into the combat DNA of the Arkham series — punchy, rhythmic, satisfying — and applying it to the LEGO world. The open-world Gotham City also draws heavily from those games. For a franchise that hasn’t had a new mainline entry in a decade, it’s a welcome spiritual successor of sorts, even if it’s arriving in brick form.

One preview called it “a wonderful, joyful, and significant evolution of what Lego IP games have always been — movie tie-ins that let our inner seven-year-olds (or, indeed, our actual seven-year-olds) re-live the cinematic magic.” The one caveat worth flagging: there have been early concerns about PC performance, and whether the final build will be fully up to speed at launch.

The Song That Ties It All Together

Using “Kiss from a Rose” as the trailer’s backbone is a genuinely inspired choice — and the story behind the song is wilder than most people realize. Seal originally recorded it early in his career and, by his own account, was embarrassed by it. It wasn’t even supposed to be in Batman Forever as anything more than a credits addition. Director Joel Schumacher had wanted it for a love scene between Batman and Nicole Kidman, but it didn’t make it into the film itself. Schumacher did, however, direct the music video to help promote the movie, and it was included on the soundtrack — which is what sent the song rocketing up the charts and turned it into a ’90s classic.

Now, more than 30 years later, it’s the soundtrack to what might be the most ambitious LEGO game ever made. That’s a full-circle moment if there ever was one.

Pre-Order Perks and What’s Coming at Launch

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight launches May 22 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. The Nintendo Switch 2 version is coming later in 2026. Players who pre-order the Deluxe Edition get early access starting May 19 — three days ahead of everyone else — along with the iconic Arkham and Batman Beyond outfits as bonus cosmetics. All pre-orders, regardless of edition, receive The Dark Knight Returns Batsuit at launch, inspired by the acclaimed Frank Miller comic series.

Unlike many previous LEGO games with their massive rosters of unlockable characters, Legacy of the Dark Knight is focusing its depth elsewhere — with a huge variety of Batsuits to collect and costume variations for the rest of the playable cast. And for those already thinking about post-launch content, the Mayhem Pack DLC adds a full Story Mission and a Mayhem Mode built around Gotham’s most chaotic duo: the Joker and Harley Quinn.

It’s been four years since LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The wait is almost over.

The post LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Launch Trailer Is Here appeared first on Cream.

• Mixtape, developed by Beethoven & Dinosaur and published by Annapurna Interactive, released May 7, 2026 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2
• The three-hour narrative game follows three friends — Rockford, Slater, and Cassandra — on their last night of high school
• Its 28-song licensed soundtrack spans Joy Division, The Smashing Pumpkins, Devo, Portishead, Silverchair, and more
• IGN called it one of 2026’s very best games; others found the light gameplay a dealbreaker
• Mixtape is available on Xbox Game Pass at no additional cost

Some games announce exactly what they are within the first five minutes. Mixtape, the new narrative adventure from Australian developer Beethoven & Dinosaur, does it in about thirty seconds — the moment Stacey Rockford kicks off her skateboard to Devo’s “That’s Good” and the world opens up around her in a blur of color and motion and pure, uncomplicated joy. You either feel it immediately, or you don’t. There is very little middle ground here.

That’s the thing about Mixtape. It’s not trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a three-hour interactive memory, a coming-of-age story told through keepsakes and flashbacks and 28 carefully chosen songs, built around three teenagers standing at the edge of the rest of their lives. Rockford, aspiring music supervisor, always wearing headphones with orange earpieces, is leaving for New York. Cassandra, the rebellious softball star with a controlling cop for a father, is heading to college. Slater is just… sticking around, man. It’s their last night together, and Beethoven & Dinosaur — the same team behind 2021’s The Artful Escape — has made a game out of what that actually feels like.

A Soundtrack That Does the Heavy Lifting

The music here isn’t decoration. It’s architecture. Rockford is an aspiring Hollywood music supervisor, and the game leans fully into that conceit — every memory, every chapter, every emotional beat is paired with a song chosen the way a real music obsessive would choose it. Not always the obvious hit. Not always the song you know. That’s the point.

You can walk around Rockford’s bedroom and get treated to album-by-album analysis in the style of Patrick Bateman — though, as IGN noted, “with far less violent undertones.” The opening skate to Devo’s “That’s Good” sets a high-energy pace. The Smashing Pumpkins’ scuzzy “Love” arrives like a burst of explosive angst. And then there’s John Paul Young’s “Yesterday’s Hero,” a deep cut that many players will be hearing for the first time, deployed so perfectly in context that it immediately lodges itself in your brain.

The full Mixtape soundtrack spans Joy Division, The Cure, Portishead, Silverchair, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Roxy Music, Iggy Pop, Alice Coltrane, and more — 28 licensed tracks in total, plus additional instrumental pieces. It’s the kind of playlist a music-obsessed teenager would actually make, which is exactly the point. For players who live and breathe this stuff, the game operates on an entirely different frequency. Even for those who don’t — one reviewer admitted he barely knew any of the songs — the music still works, landing the emotional tone of each scene with precision.

The one legitimate frustration: you have to keep moving through a chapter to hear the songs play out. There’s no way to just sit in a scene and let a track breathe. For a game so fundamentally about music, that’s a strange design choice.

What You’re Actually Playing

Let’s be honest about what Mixtape is as a game. It’s light. Deliberately, committedly light. The 30 chapters across its roughly three-hour runtime include skateboarding through suburbs, skipping stones, painting a door, designing slushies, taking photos, and renting movies. One chapter has you toilet-papering the principal’s house. Another has you escaping a party raid by hurtling downhill in a shopping cart. One memorable sequence involves controlling a pair of tongues — one on each analog stick — navigating a first kiss through brace-caged teeth, with a button labeled “That’s Enough” appearing almost immediately on screen.

That’s the register Mixtape operates in. Funny, strange, emotionally precise, mechanically minimal. If you want complex systems or meaningful player agency, this isn’t it. Men’s Journal gave it a 7.5, calling it a quintessential “your mileage may vary” title and noting that “the best it ever does with its gameplay is presenting something clever.” That’s fair. The gameplay is in service of mood, not challenge.

But for players willing to meet it on its own terms, that simplicity becomes a feature. Each small mechanic exists to make you feel something specific — headbanging in rhythm to Silverchair’s “Freak” blasting from a car radio, or hitting home runs as Cassandra while fireworks spray across the night sky and the high school field transforms into a professional stadium. The game knows exactly what it’s doing.

The Moment That Will Break You

There’s a sequence roughly two-thirds through the game — set to B.J. Thomas’s “Most of All” — that several reviewers flagged independently as the game’s emotional peak. Cassandra has just betrayed Rockford. Rockford, bereft, is lifted into the air and floats low and high through the town, drifting past toppled books and pig balloons (a quiet nod to old Pink Floyd concerts). She can be steered, somewhat, but ultimately she goes where the wind takes her. It’s a beautiful piece of game design — floating as a metaphor for grief, for the loss of control, for the way life intervenes no matter how certain you felt about your plans. When Thomas sings “I miss you, baby, most of all,” it lands.

IGN, which called Mixtape one of 2026’s very best games, described it as “a masterfully constructed dose of new memories hinged brilliantly on how they remind us of our own.” Their reviewer — who was born too late to be a teenager in the ’90s and grew up thousands of miles from Northern California — played the three-hour game three full times. “Familiarity is at the core of nostalgia,” they wrote, “and I can see myself treating Mixtape like one of those comfort films you pop on every couple of years.”

That’s probably the most useful thing to know about this game. It’s not really about the ’90s. It’s not really about Northern California, or the unnamed town the characters call “The Big Suck,” or any specific cultural touchstone. It’s about the universal experience of not realizing you’re living through something important until it’s already becoming a memory. You don’t know which car ride, which song, which stupid adventure will be the one you return to for the rest of your life. Mixtape understands that the past isn’t powerful because it was perfect. It’s powerful because it was temporary.

Style to Match the Substance

Visually, Mixtape commits fully to its aesthetic. The animation has a handcrafted, slightly stuttered quality — Spider-Verse-adjacent, painstakingly constructed — that makes every scene feel like a memory being replayed rather than a moment being lived in real time. It mixes in grainy live-action stock footage, music-video editing rhythms, and fourth-wall breaks. Different scenes get stamped with different visual styles. It never feels inconsistent because the inconsistency is the point: this is how memory actually works, filtered and exaggerated and half-mythologized by the people who lived it.

The writing matches. Slater and Cassandra are excellent foils for Rockford — their dynamic has an instant, lived-in quality, the kind of sarcasm-fuelled shorthand that only exists between people who have known each other long enough to stop performing. Referring to a T. rex as “the Barry Manilow of dinosaurs” is one of many genuinely funny lines that land without trying too hard. The dialogue occasionally slips into a kind of scripted cleverness that real people don’t quite talk in, but it’s rarely jarring enough to break the spell.

Cassandra, in particular, gets some standout scenes — though her character arc shifts a bit abruptly in places. Slater is exactly who you think he is from the moment you meet him, which is its own kind of comfort.

Mixtape is available now on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2, and is included with Xbox Game Pass. For a certain kind of player — the kind who still has songs permanently attached to old versions of themselves — it’s going to feel like it was made specifically for them. It kind of was. But the beauty of it is that you don’t need to be exactly that person to feel it working on you. You just need to have had a last night of something, once, that you didn’t fully appreciate until it was already gone.

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