Michael Z. Land is a recording artist who has created music for video games developed by LucasArts.
At Harvard University, Michael Land pursued musical studies and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then continued his education at Mills College, where he focused on electronic music and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Land began his career at Lucasfilm Games, which later became LucasArts, as a music technician and composer. His initial major work was the well-known theme song for The Secret of Monkey Island, and he contributed to the entire Monkey Island series.
Together with Peter McConnell and Justin Graham, Land played a key role in developing the iMUSE system, which was first implemented in Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. iMUSE is a specialized game engine that dynamically synchronizes musical themes with the visual elements of a video game, tailoring the music to the scenes, characters, and overall mood. It was primarily employed in LucasArts adventure games, and also found use in some non-adventure Star Wars games like Star Wars: X-Wing, Star Wars: TIE Fighter, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance.
During the production of Star Wars: Rebel Assault, Land primarily served in an advisory capacity, while Clint Bajakian and Peter McConnell took on the roles of sound engineers. Land was impressed by Lead Designer Vincent Lee's concept of incorporating streaming musical score created by John Williams for the game. He viewed this as a significant advancement for the company, one that would eventually replace the MIDI-based iMUSE system. Subsequent games such as The Dig utilized iMUSE but incorporated digital sound samples; X-Wing Alliance featured John Williams's musical score from the Original Trilogy.