World of Warcraft Finally Letting Horde and Alliance Players Play Together is a Big Deal

gamerant.com:

For as long as World of Warcraft has existed, the conflicts and divides between the Alliance and the Horde has been a driving force in its narrative. However, World of Warcraft finally pulled the ripcord and will be allowing players from both factions play together in an upcoming patch.

World of Warcraft announced the addition of cross-faction dungeons, raids, and arena PvP in a development preview. It won’t be ready for Shadowlands' Eternity's End patch, so it will be coming in the following Patch 9.2.5. Dungeons and raids from all the way back in vanilla WoW will be available with this system, though certain instances with faction-specific content, like Battle of Dazar’alor, Trial of the Crusader, and Icecrown Citadel, will be unavailable for now.

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Alliance and Horde players will be able to invite members of the opposite WoW faction if they are BattleTag or Real ID friends, or if they are both members of a cross-faction WoW community. Group Finder groups will be able to choose between cross- and same-faction listings as well. Once in a group, players from opposite factions will be able to communicate via party chat, though they will still be unfriendly until they enter an instance. Guilds, matchmaking, and overworld activities will remain faction-locked for now to keep the system optional for those who wish to play exclusively with their own faction.

Late last year, World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas talked about cross-faction gameplay and its future in WoW, though many expected it to be a feature in a future expansion. Cross-faction gameplay was originally planned for the game’s original release, but was cut due to time constraints and