John Debney's work on Lair is one of the few things often praised about that game, which was lambasted for its finicky motion controls. He wrote the music in the style of old Hollywood epics, the music is an aural feast written for a large symphony orchestra, and also features a variety of ethnic instruments as well as both chorus and solo vocalists. In terms of video game music this massive-scale undertaking is nearly unprecedented.
In an interview with Aint it Cool News, he stated:
" I think what appealed most to me was that there was a lot of creative freedom. In other words, the first thing that was up to bat for me was ‘What is the sound of LAIR?’ I had to come up with the sound that represented this world. What I ended up with, which they quite liked, was this combination of a large traditional western orchestra with other ethnic instrumental soloists like, for instance, the erhu which is an ancient Chinese instrument. I utilized some of these same musicians before on THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004).
That’s what was very appealing to me…not having as many constraints as most films do. The timeline was obviously much longer than a normal film and Sony just wanted me to go crazy and write a number of different themes for different characters in different situations. So that’s always fun. "
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