I always love listening to music while I’m working or traveling. Heck, I’m listening to Bicycle Race by Queen while I’m writing this right now. A little music goes a long way toward keeping you engaged with tasks, not to mention keeping you from drifting off into boredom-induced dissociation and potentially crashing into a wall in your car. It’s for similar reasons that good music is so vital in video games, though traditional BGM isn’t the only music to enjoy.
10 Video Games That Shaped Our Taste In Music
Our Spotify playlists are littered with these gems.
Some games give you curated playlists of proper, named songs to enjoy while you go about your business, delivered via in-game radio stations or music players. Whether you’re taking your time exploring a vast open world or need a thematically-appropriate (or deliberately inappropriate) backing track for a big battle, these sources of music are almost always worth having on hand. Yeah, you could just put on a playlist of your own music on your phone or something, but what’s the fun in that?
For the purposes of this list, all the following stations and players must actually exist in-universe in their respective games, in order to differentiate them from regular BGM.
9 Wireless Free Arcadia
The Outer Worlds 2
Despite being a spiritual sequel to Fallout: New Vegas, the original Outer Worlds was unfortunately lacking one of that game’s most distinctive characteristics: an in-game radio station. Thankfully, this was remedied in The Outer Worlds 2 with the introduction of several faction-allied wireless frequencies you can tune to for some proper adventuring music. They’ve all got their catchy tunes, but the standout is definitely the Auntie’s Choice station, Wireless Free Arcadia.
Yes, Wireless Free Arcadia plays nothing but Auntie’s Choice commercials, jingles, and corporate propaganda, but it’s also very catchy commercials, jingles, and corporate propaganda, not to mention occasionally very funny. Between the songs, you occasionally get reports on the ongoing conflict between Auntie’s Choice and the Protectorate and other wartime goings-on, and the reporter always seems to have a snide comment to offer everyone.
As for the tracks, most of them are named after the various food and drugs sold by Auntie’s Choice, each one meant to be as hideously ear-wormy as possible. Seriously, listen to Boarst Rockets once, and it will never, ever leave your head. Put a rocket in your pocket and launch your lunch today.
8 Boss’s Walkman
Metal Gear Solid 5
The original Sony Walkman portable tape deck was released in 1979, revolutionizing the field of portable music as we knew it. Coincidentally, Metal Gear Solid 5 takes place in 1984, when Walkman mania had already swept the world. Presumably, this is the reason that Diamond Dogs incorporated a Walkman into Venom Snake’s personal loadout, though with the added perk of synchronizing it with his personal terminal, the iDroid.
Throughout the game, Snake’s Walkman is used to play back cassette tapes containing information about missions and chats from Diamond Dogs members like Miller and Ocelot. More importantly, though, it can also play regular music tapes while Snake is out in the field, even if he’s in the middle of a mission. It’s not super clear how Snake can control his tapes through his iDroid, as a Walkman is literally just a tape deck with no digital components. Must be some advanced tech.
You can swipe tapes from soldier encampments, each with a hit song from the late 70s, early 80s like Kim Wilde’s Kids in America, Europe’s The Final Countdown, A-ha’s Take on Me, and one of the game’s signature songs, The Man Who Sold the World, specifically the Midge Ure cover from 1982.
7 98.7 Body Heat Radio
Cyberpunk 2077
-
- Released
- December 10, 2020
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Engine
- REDengine 4
- Cross-Platform Play
- ps, xbox, pc
- Cross Save
- yes
- Franchise
- Cyberpunk
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- yes
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- February 15, 2022
- PS5 Release Date
- February 15, 2022
- Nintendo Switch 2 Release Date
- June 5, 2025
- How Long To Beat
- 25 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- Metascore
- 75
- PS Plus Availability
- Extra & Premium
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Cyberpunk 2077’s soundtrack, rather fittingly for its aesthetic, is heavily steeped in electronic music like techno and dubstep. That’s all good and fine if you’re on a mission, but if you’re just bumming around Night City, there’s nothing wrong with popping something else on. There are 14 different radio stations you can tune to, each catering to a different genre of musical taste, though after watching Cyberpunk Edgerunners, the one I kept coming back to was 98.7 Body Heat Radio.
Weird title aside, Body Heat Radio offers a spattering of songs for different moods and vibes, many still vaguely electronic, but with a few different flavors to mix things up. You’ve got soft, smooth tunes, aggressive, industrial jams, and weird, bloopy jams. It’s a good kind of station to listen to if you’re not really sure what you’re in the mood for.
Of course, it’s also the only station in the game that plays three of the standout tracks from Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Gazelle Twin’s History, HEALTH’s Major Crimes, and everybody’s favorite tearjerker, Rosa Walton’s I Really Want to Stay at Your House.
6 Your Shanty-Singing Crew
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Here’s a fun fact: sea shanties are believed to date as far back as the 16th century, though they really came into vogue in the 19th century. Sailors would sing shanties in unison both to help keep time and rhythm during precise ship working tasks, and to help stave off boredom on what would otherwise be an excruciatingly long, dull sea voyage. As a series that prides itself on at least some degree of historical accuracy, it makes sense that Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag would incorporate shanties into its maritime activities. Hey, a bunch of dudes singing is technically a “music player.”
As you traverse the open seas of the Caribbean in Black Flag, you can find loose pages of shanty music floating about to learn new tunes to teach to your crew. At Edward’s command, the crew can launch into a rousing shanty while on the open ocean. They don’t have instruments, obviously, but those swarthy gentlemen sure can carry a tune when they want to, giving the otherwise silent waters a little whimsy for you to enjoy while exploring.
I admit, I’m not the most well-versed sea shanties, but I know a few of the classics, all of which are represented in Black Flag, such as Drunken Sailor, Leave Her, Johnny, and Spanish Ladies.
5 The Mix 107.77
Saints Row 2
If my little reference to Queen at the top didn’t tip you off, I am a big proponent of the classics when it comes to music. 70s and 80s era rock and pop are where it’s at, and you can’t change my mind on that front. Apparently, the Boss of the Saints in Saints Row 2 is of a similar belief, because they have an obvious fondness for the game’s throwback radio station, The Mix 107.77.
The Mix is one of the twelve radio stations you can flip to while driving in Saints Row 2, whose soup du jour is classic rock, pop, and new wave music circa 1980. As the station’s DJ, Darius Masters, puts it, it’s all the great hits of the 80s without the legwarmers, thank goodness for that. The station’s got all the big hits, like Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon, Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me), and Men At Work’s Down Under.
What makes The Mix a standout amongst the other stations is that, if you leave it running for a while and the right song comes on, the Boss will actually start singing along with it. They’re… not the best singer, admittedly, but it’s a cute little moment of levity from what is otherwise a very intense person.
4 Chai’s MP3 Player
Hi-Fi Rush
The center of Hi-Fi Rush protagonist Chai’s character is that he’s kind of a huge poser. He wants to be a rock star, but he doesn’t actually know how to play guitar. I will give him this, though, Chai has excellent taste in music, and you get to experience that taste throughout the entire game.
At the start of the game, a mishap with the Armstrong Cybernetics project results in Chai’s old MP3 player being embedded in his chest, leading to his “musical robot powers,” to use the game’s terminology. Everything and everyone is forced to sync up to the beat of whatever music is playing on Chai’s MP3 player, which you get to hear as the one controlling him. Since it’s embedded in his chest, he can’t exactly skip tracks, but there always seems to be something thematically appropriate playing, so who’s complaining.
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Assuming you don’t have streamer mode turned on, Chai’s MP3 player is loaded with some verifiable classics, such as Nine-Inch Nails’ The Perfect Drug, The Prodigy’s Invaders Must Die, and a cover of Fiona Apple’s Fast As You Can. Though, the original songs that play if you do have streamer mode turned on are also pretty excellent, such as QA-1ML’s boss theme, Too Big To Fail.
Brutal Legend
In the mythology of Brutal Legend, heavy metal music is the primordial sound of the Titans, harvested from the scream of the ancient fire beast Ormagoden. The first time you bring the Deuce to the Guardian of Metal, the Titans reward you with an accessory for it: the Mouth of Metal, a little screaming void on the dashboard that plays classic metal tracks. It works like a tape deck, don’t ask how.
With the Mouth of Metal loaded onto the Deuce, you can enjoy the game’s awesome soundtrack of music in every flavor of the metal rainbow while driving around or in the midst of big stage battles. You can’t listen to it during missions, unfortunately, but there’s usually some metal playing ambiently during missions anyway, so no big deal.
You have a pretty good selection of tracks to choose from when you first get the Mouth of Metal, but by finding Buried Metal around the open world, you can add even more tracks to the playlist. We’ve got tunes from all the big names in metal, like Ozzy Osbourne’s Mr. Crowley, Manowar’s Dawn of Battle, and my personal favorite, Motley Crue’s Kickstart My Heart.
2 V-Rock
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Tired of me talking about classic rock? Well, tough, because I’m not done yet. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is set in 1986, when spandex-clad rockers still ruled the scene. The game has a healthy variety of different radio stations on offer for your driving needs, piping in tunes in the flavors of synth pop, new wave, power ballads, and others, but the best stuff, as usual, is the classic rock funneled straight to you via V-Rock.
Besides having a curated playlist of certified bangers from across the 80s, V-Rock also has the distinctive honor of being hosted by Jeffrey Crawford “Lazlow” Jones, an actual real-life radio personality and the co-writer and producer of all the radio content in the entire game. He had his pick of hosting every single station in the game, and he chose V-Rock. That’s a badge of honor, right there.
So, what have we got on tap at V-Rock? Nothing but the top shelf, of course, like Twisted Sister’s I Wanna Rock, Motley Crue’s Too Young To Fall In Love, and Loverboy’s Working For The Weekend.
1 Radio New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegas
Since Fallout 3, in-game radio has been inexorably tied with the Fallout franchise’s brand identity, feeding you big band classics that make for a lovely contrast with the blasted-out wasteland. Picking just one out of all the stations in the series, such as Galaxy News Radio and Diamond City Radio, is a difficult task for sure. If I had to narrow it down to just one, though, my heart and soul still belongs to Fallout: New Vegas’s Radio New Vegas.
Radio New Vegas’s signal can be picked up from across the entirety of the Mojave Wasteland via your Pip-Boy and regular radios, providing a 24/7 feed of the latest news and classic western-tinged tracks. I sincerely cannot remember a time I didn’t have it piping music in throughout my first New Vegas playthrough, aside from locales outside its range like the DLC maps.
As for why we’re going with Radio New Vegas in particular, there are two reasons: first, Mr. New Vegas is the smoothest dude this side of Hoover Dam. I don’t care if he’s technically not a real person. Second, the song selection is top-shelf. Blue Moon, Johnny Guitar, Heartaches by the Number, Big Iron, for goodness’ sake. Don’t even act like you don’t have Big Iron permanently stuck in your head because of Radio New Vegas.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
