Wax Heads, a cozy-punk record shop sim from two-person studio Patattie Games, arrives on PC and consoles May 5, 2026. A new trailer revealed during The MIX digital showcase offers a look at fresh gameplay, including customer interactions, mini-games like poster design and social media management, and glimpses of the world beyond the shop's walls.
Players take on the role of the newest employee at Repeater Records, a legendary shop known for always recommending the right vinyl to the right customer. The store is struggling to survive in a changing world, and it's your job to help it find its rhythm again. That means chatting with indecisive customers, debating music with your colleagues, digging through crates, and occasionally slacking off when the mood strikes. The setting is rendered in a comic book art style, hand-drawn and packed with personality. Over 80 albums fill the shelves, each with its own imagined band, history, and fanbase. The shop itself is staffed and frequented by a rotating cast of eccentrics, music nerds, and chaotic regulars, every one of them bursting with questionable opinions about what "real music" is. They're the soul of the place.
There's a warmth to the premise that goes beyond retail nostalgia. Wax Heads is built around community, musical mystery, and what the developers call underdog spirit. The narrative is emotional and uplifting, centered on the people who orbit a record shop and the culture that keeps it alive even when the economics don't make sense anymore. The liner notes reward curiosity. Did Scandinavian metal band Jarhead really murder their singer and put his head in a jar? Is it true big shot rapper RXXX used to be a kid's TV presenter? Has anyone ever seen Mimi? The lore is playful and strange, threaded through the records themselves rather than delivered in cutscenes. Patattie Games is Murray Somerwolff, a creative doodler whose previous work includes Welcome to Elk, Spitkiss, and Dead Pets Unleashed, alongside Rothio Tome, a former Unity developer support engineer and one of Spain's top game development streamers.
The core loop revolves around matching customers to records. You decode clues from their requests, browse the collection, scroll social media, and pore over local music zines to hunt down the perfect recommendation. It's puzzle design dressed up as retail work, cozy in tone but built on actual problem-solving. Beyond the counter, the game branches into mini-games that extend the shop's reach into the wider music scene. You might find yourself running lights for local bands, designing gig posters, or packing orders. The dialogue is punchy and humorous, and the original soundtrack spans dozens of tracks across genres, bands, and eras, each one crafted to feel like a nostalgic gem you'd actually want to loop.
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Wax Heads sits in a space where the simulation isn't about optimization or profit margins but about paying attention. Knowing your regulars, learning the catalogue, picking up on the drama between imagined bands. The store is the anchor, but the music and the people who care about it are the point. Every record in the crate has its own personality, and so does every customer leaning on the counter waiting for you to find them something perfect.