As part of the Dragonflight story epilogue in Patch 10.2.5, we saw the highly anticipated return of Malfurion Stormrage, reuniting with his long-time love Tyrande Whisperwind and adopted daughter Shandris Feathermoon in their new home at the foot of Amirdrassil. For the first time in Warcraft history, the homecoming is punctuated by an on-screen kiss between reunited lovers.
Portraying this embrace in-game is more technically challenging than the simplicity of the act itself, however. Shadowlands presented the first in-engine hug between Pelagos and Kleia, which is already a much greater technical challenge than pre-rendered cutscenes like the one between Katherine and Jaina in Battle for Azeroth, while a kiss requires an even greater degree of precision. These types of embraces aren’t seen in very many video games precisely because of collision issues between character geometry – mashing two character models together is easy, but making it look convincing is the hard part.
