"A tear was shed during this one": WoW Forever dev says it was an "honor and privilege" to bring an old Make-A-Wish quest back in Blizzard's new MMO

World of Warcraft: Forever is all about preserving the original, vanilla WoW experience as it was back in 2004, but there's one quest from 2007 that the MMO's community has been asking Blizzard to make an exception for, and now their wishes have been granted.

For the uninitiated, the Kyle's Gone Missing quest was originally added to WoW during its Burning Crusade era from 2007. It was a Make-A-Wish request from a young player named Ezra 'Ephoenix' Chatterton, who had been battling brain cancer at the time. Blizzard did the right thing and let Chatteron design and perform the voice lines for the quest, which tasks you with helping Chatteron's NPC, Ahab Wheathoof, find his dog. It's an absolutely adorable and extremely heartwarming quest, but as WoW Forever only includes content from the original 2004 release, Kyle's Gone Missing has been, well, missing from Blizzard's new MMO until now.

Chatterton sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2008, but almost 20 years later, his memory is being honored in WoW Forever. Users on Blizzard's forum have been requesting that the quest to be added, and earlier this week a community manager indicated it was happening. Now, WoW Forever principal game designer Johnny Cash has confirmed in a tweet that Kyle's Gone Missing and Ahab Wheathoof have been added to the game in an emotional moment for the developer and anyone else who's familiar with Chatterton's story.

"I had the honor and privilege of bringing 'Kyle's Gone Missing!' into WoW: Forever," says Cash. "Ezra Chatterton was an enormous WoW fan, the creator and voice actor behind Ahab Wheathoof, and the creator of Kyle.

"A tear was shed during this one, my friends. Rest in peace, Ezra."

If you want to take on Ezra's quest and help find his dog, you'll find the character in Bloodhoof Village in the Mulgore region, which is actually the starting zone if you're playing as a Tauren. I won't spoil anything about the quest itself if you've yet to experience it, but you'll need to hit level 5 before you can start it.

I'm a lifelong MMO fan since the early days of Ultima Online and EverQuest, but WoW has always been a massive blind spot for me. I'm being sincere when I say I'm more compelled to dive in now than ever after researching and writing this story. It being the biggest MMO in the world, I'm no stranger to issues like player toxicity, but it's hard not to be just a little bit won over by gestures like this.

After 20 hours with World of Warcraft: Forever, I'm convinced it gives old school fans nearly everything they could want