Soundtrack

Final project leader Sean Clark said the music of The Dig was crucial in "establishing the overall mood of the piece". During production, LucasArts desired a soundtrack with a "Wagnerian" feeling. Composed by Michael Land, the music consisted of Land's original score performed on a Kurzweil K2000 synthesizer, enriched by hundreds of short chord samples from the works of Wagner. Land cited the music he personally composed for The Dig as the type closest to his own individual style.

The music is relatively static during most of the game, used more as a backdrop than a prominent aspect of gameplay, and has been described as consisting mostly of "vague cadenzas, modulations and movements without much consequence for the material". When important sequences and cut scenes occur, however, the music comes to the forefront and becomes significantly more dynamic.

The Dig was the first LucasArts game to have its soundtrack sold separately as an audio CD, adapted as a linear continuity of finite pieces. Land played the piano and synthesizer and produced the album. He was assisted by Hans Christian Reumschüssel (cello), Emily Bezar (vocals) and Paul McCandless (woodwinds). The soundtrack was bundled with a CD-ROM that included demos for five LucasArts games, and was intended as a first step in cross-promotional efforts.

Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online gave the soundtrack 9 out of 10, calling it "accessible yet abstract, simple yet deep". About "Mission to the Asteroid", the opening song, he wrote, "Much of the composition conveys beauty and serenity, yet there is a certain tragic element created with the sweeping chord changes and sometimes elegiac motifs". He noted that while much of the album is quite ambient and subdued, it contains numerous subtle variations in its themes. He concluded by saying the album is "surprisingly fulfilling even on a stand-alone basis" and that it "never fails to immerse and fascinate me".