So I'm a huge fan of the upcoming cyberpunk-themed game; Cyberpunk 2077, obviously, but I've got a huge problem. I've seen all the marketing material, looked at (and used) all of the released screenshots and read every tweet from the official twitter handle, (And I hate Twitter.) but it's still not enough. I haven't got anywhere near my fix of Cyberpunk content and, due to that handy six month delay, I'm not even in the homestretch when I can start chewing by fingers to nubs in anticipation. In the leadup to Skyrim those days were filled by me watching and re-watching that impressive E3 trailer from a while back (Which, in hindsight, completely oversold the power of the physics engine) and I did the same with the multiple gameplay snippets we received in the lead-up to 'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain'. But I can't garner the same amount of excitement for that 'proof of concpet' we received in 2018 because I still don't believe any of that was honestly representative of the final product. If only there was another piece of content, released closer to the release date, that gives us a solid tease of what to expect from the final game...
You see where I'm going with this. (You read the title, afterall.) Yes, I have become so desperate to hype-up Cyberpunk that I'm willing to harp on about that music 'trailer' we all had shoved in our ears at the VGAs. Now I'm not someone who dislikes music per se, in fact I'd argue that those who do 'hate music' exist only in badly written scripts, in fact I have rather an eclectic taste which I'm sure would strike a lot of people as 'weird and mismatched'. (Because it largely is.) And it's for that reason that I do hold some residual appreciation for the work that goes in to make a soundtrack work. Unfortunately, I do find it very 'hit-or-miss' with video game soundtracks; I either love them with all my heart and can yammer on about that ad nauseam, or I find them lazy enough that I actively try to ignore them. (There are a few games with tracks so bad that I disable music, but let's not talk about Watch_Dogs' radio selection right now.)
What I'm trying to say is that I recognize the power of music in game development. It's one of the most influential and eminent tools to set a tone and establish a mood, and when done right it can be absolutely excellent, which is why I thought it was interesting that CDPR felt confidant enough with their direction to give us a little tease. Additionally, CDPR have taken another monumental challenge as they want to provide tracks for an ingame open world that are all tailor-made, immersive and still enjoyable in their own right, which is an undertaking unlike any I ever seen before in the video game world. (With a couple recent notable exceptions that I will touch on.)
Almost every open world game relies on music to fill up the empty spaces in their world and gameplay, whether that be through radio-stations or incidental background tunes, but they mostly have a base of existing music to fall back on. When you drive about in GTA or Saints Row, you expect to hear your radio play good, recognizable songs to fill your time as that suits the nature of the world you've been introduced to. (and with Watch_dogs you expect to hear a vast majority of garbage.) Although your playground is largely fictional, the setting is supposed to mirror the real world so you expect to hear real world music. (Even though it is a little weird to hear hip-hop tracks about living in Los Angeles whilst you zip around Los Santos.)
Even in games with largely fantastical settings, like Fallout, you are still accompanied by recognizable 50's tunes that inform the audience about the theme of the world they're living in. Yes, it's the future, but it's a retro-future envisioned in some 50's world fair years previously. Titles that are entirely mythical, like Skyrim, don't even need to worry about creating fictional radio tracks (for obvious reasons) so you can start to see the rather unique position that CDPR are in when creating the world of Cyberpunk. Whilst NightCity is recognizably on planet Earth with humans, it is crucially not the earth that we know and so wouldn't share any of our music. (If it was our earth, we'd be rebuilding after the devastation of World War 3 right now.)
To achieve this lofty goal, CDPR have decided to hire an entire staff of active artists and musicians to pen the musical edge of the Cyberpunk world, and that is no mean feat. Commercial music is especially important to the Cyperpunk mythos as the rebellious attitude of rock music forms one of the key factions of this universe; the Rockerboy faction. These people voice their opposition to the corporate mandate that consumes the Cyperpunk world with their anti-establishment guitar riffs and generally disruptive lifestyle, and before you doubt their relevance to CDPR's interpretation of Cyperpunk let me inform you that their 'patron saint' is Johnny Silverhand. (I hear he has a city to burn.)
Creatively, this is the kind of experiment that I absolutely laud the Cyberpunk team for trying their hand at and you can see, just from watching the musicians in the trailer, how these collaborators are just as curious to see how the final product ends up. Just from what we've heard it's easy to see a certain lean toward the 'counter-culture' genre of music right away, with 'Run the Jewels' mentioning 'Hard Rap' and 'Richard Devine' mentioning 'Punk Rock'. Although, I do hope we'll see a tonal variety out of the full music lineup. And perhaps that was something we got a glimpse of thanks to Grimes' live performance at the game awards. (Oh, so that's why Elon Musk was there!) Her ephemeral track, 4ÆM, seemed suitably futuristic without the 'hard-edge' that was being descried
previously, so I hope that variety persists to the full product.
Of course, a year ago this sort of 'envison a whole unique world of music to fill up your gameworld' idea would have been entirely unprecedented, but it seems that some Devs might be frequenting the same Shishka bars because we've seen this very concept described by Ubisoft, of all people, twice now. Firstly, we saw this idea presented with 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' and more recently we heard this with 'Watch Dogs: Leigon', both using Joseph Gordan Levitt's company, HitRecord, to fill out the media of their game world. Although those projects specialize in contracting a vast number of relative unknowns whilst Cyberpunk is aiming at specific established artists. Right now it's hard to determine which will cater towards a more believable world when it's all said and done (none of these three games have been released yet) but I have a feeling that these titles may end up being the ground floor for the next step forward in video game open worlds. Although personally I'm more hopeful for CD Projekt Red's attempt, We'll just have to wait and see which heralds the future
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