Jason Hayes

Jason Hayes is an American composer who was the lead composer of the original World of Warcraft. He wrote most of the music in the 2004 game, including the main title theme and the music for many of its zones and cities, after earlier work on Blizzard's StarCraft, Diablo and Warcraft III. He later returned to Blizzard for Mists of Pandaria and has since worked for Riot Games, Valve and Imagendary Studios.

Early career

According to a 2008 biography published by Blizzplanet, Hayes was born in New Orleans and as a child made interactive adventure games for friends, complete with music recorded on a tape recorder. He studied piano with concert pianist William Chapman Nyaho, toured for about a year as part of the backup band for the recording artist Kyper, and then returned to college as a music composition major at the University of North Texas. After moving to California he worked as a staff composer at Sierra On-Line before joining Blizzard Entertainment.

At Blizzard he was part of the original music team for StarCraft with Derek Duke and Glenn Stafford, and he contributed music to Diablo and Warcraft titles. On Warcraft III he co-wrote "A Call to Arms" with Stafford and scored the game's cinematics. He also wrote music for the Blizzard film department's animated shorts and twice won the Game Audio Network Guild award for Best Cinematic/Cut-scene Audio.

Work on World of Warcraft

Hayes was the lead composer for World of Warcraft's 2004 release. In a 2005 interview he said his job was to write most of the music, to work out how the music would be triggered in the game, and to give the score its creative direction. He described the zone music as something meant to be felt more than noticed, comparing it to lighting or fog, and said the major cities and other important places got their own themes that play when players arrive.

The World of Warcraft Soundtrack, released on November 23, 2004, with the game's Collector's Edition, credits him with 24 of its 30 tracks. The other composers were Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke and Glenn Stafford. His pieces include:

He also wrote the short "moment" cues heard around the world, such as the tavern, temple, haunted, sacred and graveyard pieces, and the drum-heavy tavern music in Horde troll villages. Because the 1.12 game reuses these themes across many zones, his music covers a large share of what players hear while leveling. Warcraft Wiki notes that the score is closer in style to Warcraft III than to the earlier Warcraft games, since Hayes was the main composer on both.

For The Burning Crusade he wrote exterior music for the Caverns of Time, and for Wrath of the Lich King he shared credit on the main title and on "Invincible" with Russell Brower and others, and contributed the "Arthas, My Son" cinematic music and music for the Wrathgate cutscene.

Leaving and returning

By mid-2007 Hayes was working with other game companies, including NCsoft, and on a solo album, and in early 2008 Blizzplanet reported that he had founded his own music and sound production company. He came back to Blizzard during Mists of Pandaria, contributing to patch 5.1 and the following patches. His later World of Warcraft work includes a theme for Jaina Proudmoore's homeland of Kul Tiras, which returned in a Battle for Azeroth cinematic, music for Garrosh Hellscream, and pieces for Battle for Azeroth. He also worked on Hearthstone.

Later career

A March 2022 press release from FunPlus announced Hayes as audio director at Imagendary Studios, the Irvine studio founded by former Blizzard artist Wei Wang. The release said he had also composed for Valve's Dota 2 and Counter-Strike, had been music director at Riot Games for League of Legends, and that his work had been performed by orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Sources

• Jason Hayes, Warcraft Wiki
• World of Warcraft Soundtrack, Warcraft Wiki
• Jason Hayes biography, Blizzplanet (2008)
• Blizzard Entertainment Music Composer Interview, GameBanshee (2005)
• Who made Warcraft's soundtrack?, Engadget (2007)
• Imagendary Studios appoints Jason Hayes as Audio Director, FunPlus (2022)
• Glenn Stafford on Twitter, on the original StarCraft music team