THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED SEPTEMBER 30, 2026
Short answer: Blizzard is working on putting Kyle's Gone Missing! back into WoW Forever. The quest, which a ten-year-old Make-A-Wish kid named Ezra Chatterton helped design in 2007, isn't in the beta because it was added during The Burning Crusade. After a week of forum requests, community manager Kaivax replied on September 28: "We're working on it. Stay tuned!" There's no date and no build yet, but it's the clearest yes Blizzard has given to any beta feedback thread so far.
What went missing
If you rolled a Tauren in the beta, you probably noticed a gap by the road outside Bloodhoof Village. Ahab Wheathoof should be standing there. He's the old rancher whose puppy, Kyle the Frenzied, keeps running circles around the village, and he asks you to feed Kyle some Tender Strider Meat from the plainstriders to the east. You get a handful of copper, 200 experience and a bit of Thunder Bluff reputation. Kyle, now "Kyle the Friendly," thanks you with a dance.
It takes about five minutes. It has also been part of Mulgore for almost twenty years, and plenty of players do it on every Tauren they roll.
The reason it's missing is simple. The quest arrived in patch 2.1.2 in June 2007, which makes it Burning Crusade content, and Forever builds on the vanilla world. Players spotted the absence on the first night. A forum thread titled "Kyle's Gone Missing" went up on September 18, a day after the beta opened, and asked why the quest hadn't made it in when so many other quests had been added to the old zones.
Who Ezra was
Ezra Chatterton was a Tauren hunter who played on Norgannon US with his father. In spring 2007 he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and his wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation was to visit Blizzard and help make something for World of Warcraft. TechCrunch reported the visit on May 23, 2007: he recorded voice lines, designed a weapon and a quest, and got to use a one-of-a-kind crossbow.
The quest was Kyle's Gone Missing!, built with Jeff Kaplan's quest team. Ahab speaks with Ezra's voice. Ezra also received a world-first Ashes of Al'ar (the phoenix was his personal symbol and his middle name), and Blizzard later added Elder Ezra Wheathoof to Thunder Bluff for the Lunar Festival in his memory.
Ezra had a stroke in August 2008 and died on October 20 that year. After his death, Horde players traveled to Mulgore to do the quest in his memory, and many still do.
The thread that got the answer
The request that stuck was "Can we put the Kyle Questline back into Mulgore?", posted on September 20 by a player whose husband had beta access but no game time to post with. It sat quietly for a week, then picked up again on September 28, when Kaivax merged a second thread titled "Kyle's Gone Missing! is missing" into it. That evening he quoted one player's hope that Blizzard would "make the exception for the time frame and put him in" and wrote:
"We're working on it. Stay tuned!"
By September 30 the thread had 74 replies and over 13,000 views. Wowhead and MMOHuts wrote it up, and GamesRadar+ ran it under a headline noting that Blizzard is "making an exception" to the vanilla timeline.
Most replies were simple thank-yous. One poster, who wrote that they grew up as a Make-A-Wish kid themselves, shared how Blizzard swag at a hospital holiday party got them into Warcraft III. A couple of posters argued the other way, that TBC content has no place in a vanilla-based game. They got a rough reception, and a few replies pointed out that Forever already mixes in plenty that was never in 1.12.
Why the timeline argument doesn't really hold
Forever isn't a museum copy of 2006. Blizzard has added new quests to the old zones, a new race in the Skyborne, and whole new areas, all covered in our guide to Forever's new zones and dungeons. It also runs on the modern client, and our Forever vs Classic breakdown lists how much of that shows through. A level 5 quest in Bloodhoof Village that changes nothing about balance or the economy is about the easiest exception Blizzard could make.
What we don't know yet:
- When. Kaivax gave no build or date. The beta runs until October 21 and the game launches on November 4, so it could land in a beta build or arrive at launch.
- Whether it comes back unchanged. One poster wanted it moved somewhere Alliance players pass through too. Others pointed out that Ezra played a Tauren and the quest belongs by the bridge. Blizzard hasn't said anything about changes.
- Whether Elder Ezra Wheathoof comes too. He's tied to the Lunar Festival, and Blizzard hasn't said which holidays Forever will run.
Other memorials players are asking for
The thread quickly turned into a wider list. Players asked about the memorial to Mats Steen, the player whose life was the subject of the Netflix documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, and about the retail tribute to the streamer Reckful. One reply asked for "all memorials that have been for players." Blizzard hasn't answered any of those, and some were added long after vanilla, so don't read Kaivax's reply as covering them.
What to do in the beta
Nothing yet. If you're testing a Tauren on the WoW Forever beta, keep an eye on the road just north of Bloodhoof Village, toward Thunder Bluff, after each new build. We'll update this page when Ahab is back, with the build number. If you're still picking a race for launch, our best race page and the racials list cover what Tauren actually bring.
Sources: Blizzard forums, Can we put the Kyle Questline back into Mulgore? (September 20 to 30) and Kaivax's reply, post #31 (September 28); Blizzard forums, Kyle's Gone Missing (September 18); Wowhead, Blizzard Working on Putting Make-a-Wish Quest Back in WoW: Forever (September 28); GamesRadar+, Blizzard is making an exception for a Make-a-Wish quest from Burning Crusade (September 29); MMOHuts, Blizzard Plans to Restore Make-A-Wish Quest Kyle's Gone Missing (September 29); TechCrunch, Blizzard Makes A Wish Come True (May 23, 2007); Warcraft Wiki, Kyle's Gone Missing! and Ezra Chatterton (read September 30).