For as many things as Cyberpunk 2077 gets wrong, it does just as many right. While the police look like they might have flunked out of the Police Academy movies, the fast, slick combat makes up for them. Though the open world of Night City may be lacking genuine, reactive life, the fantastic story does its best to pick up the slack. The music, though, deserves recognition all its own.
Marcin Przybyłowicz, who you may recognise from his earlier work on The Witcher 3’s seminal soundtrack, has put together the perfect mood-board for Cyberpunk 2077 alongside, which all culminates in the pretty chilling “Been Good To Know Ya”.
Heard during the final choice when the player must choose between sending V back into his body to eventually die or for Johnny to assume complete control (as well as at many other points during multiple endings), “Been Good To Know Ya” is one of those dark, uncomfortable ending songs that makes you question just about everything. I’ve seen every ending in Cyberpunk 2077, including the worst one, and always felt oddly stirred by the song.
I don’t know why it does, but Przybyłowicz’s somewhat evil sounding always just gives me the biggest knot in my stomach. It sounds about as final as a closing song can get, the dark, echoing noise coming close to being something more out of Dead By Daylight than Cyberpunk. “Been Good To Know Ya” actually reminds me of “Bridge of Death” from the Chernobyl show, a brooding, just plain discomforting listen that suggests nothing is going to be clean and simple.
It’s an ethereal track that just sticks in the mind like a biochip, especially when the strings come in at the two and half minute mark. I think that’s when the track will hit people the hardest, like there’s absolute finality in your decision, that nothing you choose (or have chosen) is going to be the perfect decision, that there’s nobody who leaves Night City the same person they came in as.
Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t a perfect game; it’s one where you have to take the rough with the smooth. As buggy as it may be and incomplete as it may feel, Marcin Przybyłowicz and P.T. Adamczyk really couldn’t have composed a better score. From “Been Good To Know Ya” to Olga Jankowska’s cover of “Never Fade Away” and the many brand new tracks that make up the game’s radio, Cyberpunk 2077’s music is, frankly, perfect.
Cyberpunk 2077 is out now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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