Blizzard Entertainment Music Composer Interview

Experience Gaming has conducted an interview with Jason Hayes, the man responsible for much of the music in Blizzard’s Diablo, Starcraft, and World of Warcraft. A small taste of the Q&A:

Q: Tell us about your contribution to World of Warcraft’s music.

A: As lead composer for World of WarCraft, I was responsible for writing the majority of the music as well as coming up with implementation strategies and providing creative direction. It was a challenge, because with an MMORPG it’s important to take into consideration the open-ended nature of the experience and the length of time a player will hang out in this living, breathing world.

Because people could be playing this game for (hopefully) years, it was obvious that we’d have to approach the music very carefully. We decided on a direction that we hoped would have an emotional and immersive feeling, but without being bombastic and irritating. The idea I kept thinking of while working on it, was the goal of achieving a musical effect that would be similar to lighting or fog- something that would be both subtle but very evocative.

In addition to this strategy for the zone music, we also found special areas where we could trigger more thematic musical pieces to let the player know they’ve found a key location. An example of this would be the major cities, as well as many other notable areas that have special significance in the WarCraft lore.