'That Was a Lie': Mixtape Won't Lose Its Music

Twenty-eight licensed tracks, all secured in perpetuity. That's the number Mixtape fans were worried about, and it's the number Annapurna Interactive just put to rest in the most corporate-un-corporate way possible.

In an interview with Kotaku, Beethoven & Dinosaur creative director Johnny Galvatron confirmed that the studio paid extra to license every track in the game permanently. Then Annapurna Interactive posted on X: "We heard some people say MIXTAPE would be delisted due to music licenses expiring. That was a lie. Have a great weekend, everyone."

I can't remember the last time a publisher responded to community speculation by flatly calling it a lie and signing off with a "have a great weekend." Most studios would've put out a carefully worded FAQ or buried the clarification in a community manager's reply thread. Annapurna just swung. It's the kind of confidence you earn when your game is sitting at an 87 on OpenCritic with a 91% recommendation rate from top critics.

Why the fear was real

The concern wasn't irrational. Games disappear from storefronts because of expired licenses all the time. Rock Band 4 went dark late last year. The original Alan Wake vanished in 2017. Even GTA 4 had tracks quietly swapped out after licenses lapsed in 2018. Mixtape, which features artists ranging from The Smashing Pumpkins and The Cure to Iggy Pop and Portishead, looked like a prime candidate for the same fate. The game is currently only available digitally, so if it ever did get pulled, there'd be no physical copies to fall back on.

Galvatron told Kotaku the licensing process was surprisingly smooth. The team floated the idea of approaching Pink Floyd but were warned off by a supervisor who figured the band wouldn't bite. Beyond that, they got "pretty much everything" they asked for. One anecdote stands out: Galvatron described a moment in the game where the character Stacy turns to the screen and says "This is the Smashing Pumpkins, and it's fucking sick." They sent that to Billy Corgan. Corgan's response, paraphrased: yeah, that's fine.

Mixtape launched on May 7 across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, and it's included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Paying for perpetual licenses across 28 tracks from artists of that caliber isn't cheap, and Annapurna deserves credit for backing a small studio's vision with the kind of money that keeps a game available permanently. Most publishers treat music licensing as a cost to minimize; this one treated it as something worth protecting.