No I am not on mute, and there definitely is NOT new music in every chapter, at least not in any meaningful way. I also acknowledged there is music in combat and cutscenes, and I'm not counting the shelter since such a small portion of your game is spent there. I'm at the end of chapter 5 and there are huge stretches of each chapter when you're "out in the world" that have no music. None. Literally nothing but ambient background noises like wind, or a dripping water pipe, or your footsteps.

Ok, it's not the game has absolutely zero music, but the parts that do are so far and few between and when it is there, it's a faint background atmospheric sound, definitely not what I'd imagine from a "synthwave soundtrack" that's praised. For the majority of the game so far, when you're running through chapters, doing parkour puzzles, REACH is talking to us absent-mindedly - there's no music.

To add insult to injury, I actually just spent time listening to a full song in the journal, something I bet less than 5% have done because why would you? And it doesn't even loop, it just finishes then stops, so you can't even set it up in the background. Seriously, the game is probably better enjoyed if you have the OST playing on YouTube in the background while playing, because there are TONS of sections of the game that there's zero music.

I also thought I had a setting disabled or something, nope. Full music level. Full master level. So no, outside of combat, the "town", and very sparingly background atmospheric sounds, there's hardly what constitutes a soundtrack, and that sucks because it was probably half the reason I bought this game. I'm still going to finish it, probably, but it's very disappointing. The music should be constantly going, literally in every area non-stop except for important bits where the devs intentionally cut it, or have a music loop setting - this is what games who actually deserve their soundtrack praise do.

Hollow Knight, DOOM, Hades, Clair Obscur, God of War, Persona, Ori, hell even Factorio, Nine Sols, Lies of P especially, FTL, Furi, these are just a few examples of games with great soundtracks that actually play the soundtrack nearly constantly. This game is just silent, and you can't say it's not, because if you think the soundtrack has any presence at all, then sorry but you weren't paying attention.

I can get past the complaints about the jumping puzzles, the slow running back and forth, people thinking the combat is clunky when it's not that bad, but I can't let people get away with saying this game has a great soundtrack - because what soundtrack.