Cyberpunk 2077: Samurai Band Didn’t Know About Keanu Reeves’ Involvement

The band that plays music for Cyberpunk 2077's Samurai had no idea that Keanu Reeves was involved. Refused are the faces behind the sound of Johnny Silverhand's band in the wildly-discussed game. Inverse managed to sit down with the band to talk about bringing that dystopia sound to life. The most surprising nugget in the interview is the fact that they were unaware that the Matrix star was playing the character at all. Frontman Dennis Lyxzen knew a little bit about the game and the Cyberpunk tabletop experience that influenced it. But, they never could have dreamed they would see Reeves stroll up next to them at E3. It just goes to show you that someone can be an icon in their own right, but be completely taken aback by another legend rolling up out of nowhere. Criticism of Cyberpunk has been plentiful, and some of it earned, but this small detail will probably put a smile on your face.

"When we wrote the songs, we didn't know that it was Keanu playing Johnny Silverhand," Lyxzén shared. "It was all super secretive and we didn't find out until he was introduced at some gaming event and came out to "Chippin' In" and I'm like, 'Holy s***is that him? That's wild!'"

"I am not a gamer," Lyxzén added. "I didn't know anything about it. So I just kind of passed it on to my management and they were like, 'Holy s*** — this is big time!' It turned out that both the director of the game [Adam Badowski] and the whole team were huge fans. The original idea was for them to create music, and then for me to sing it. Then they asked, 'do you think you can do this with Refused?'"

If you were looking forward to the prospect of running around Night City with friends, you're going to be a little bit disappointed. During a recent call with investors, CD Projekt Red CEO Adam Kicinski suggested that multiplayer is pretty far down the priority list at the moment. If his words are to be believed, most of the developers are focused on refining the single-player experience.

"At the moment please let us handle the situation, and please let us make some more assessments – that's still ahead of us; we don't know yet, and we're now focused on improving Cyberpunk," Kicinski replied when the topic came up. "We'll discuss this early next year."

What's your favorite song from the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack? Let us know down in the comments!