The place Skyrim had Lydia, the newest large Steam survival hit—Sons of the Forest—has Kelvin. He’s there to assist, regardless of how a lot his ears bleed, and folks completely love the lovely, lobotomized handyman.
In Sons of the Forest, the brand new Early Entry sequel to the enormously standard The Forest, you play the survivor of a helicopter crash, stranded on a peculiar island inhabited by cannibal mutants. Nonetheless, this time you’re not the one absolutely human survivor—once you get up from the opening sequence, you’re accompanied by Kelvin. Deaf and mute, and seemingly considerably extra inhibited than that, we all know his title as a result of it’s on his badge. However past that, Kelvin is a thriller.
Blood drips from each of his ears, suggesting one thing very dangerous occurred to our poor buddy when you had been out chilly, however no matter it was, it’s left him very keen to assist. With puppy-like enthusiasm, Kelvin will fetch you sticks and rocks, construct crude shelters and fires, and most significantly, comply with you to the very ends of the Earth, regardless of how lengthy it’d take him.
On this manner, Kelvin is enormously harking back to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’s preliminary companion character, Lydia. Besides Lydia’s lobotomy is barely assumed, an inevitability of that decade-old RPG’s hilariously abysmal AI, whereas Kelvin…nicely, Kelvin has these bleeding ears.
He might be very helpful! Gathering wooden and stones isn’t a giant deal in Sons of the Forest, however it’s busywork that distracts from the extra enjoyable duties of constructing bigger buildings, or simply exploring the bizarre island’s myriad secrets and techniques. Having him mild a fireplace can be super-helpful should you’re off searching squirrels, which means there’s someplace to cook dinner the meat when you’ve gathered your haul. He may even go catch fish for you, even the place there aren’t any fish. However how useful is he general? Effectively, Kelvin tries arduous.
In my time with Kelvin, he’s set himself and the encompassing space on fireplace so many occasions, every time with probably the most endearing look of full shocked naivety on his face. It’s this mixture of enthusiastic innocence and frequent incompetence that’s making the NPC so standard amongst gamers, and resulting in some glorious #content material™.
Setting himself on fireplace is a typical theme, however he may attain the alternative excessive, merrily strolling round on the backside of lakes with no obvious want for air.
Kelvin additionally likes to destroy, which is actually upsetting a good few people.
Nonetheless, I don’t assume there’s a greater instance of Kelvin’s demolition than this one on Reddit. Poor Kelvin. He’s attempting so arduous!
Then once more, issues usually go fallacious for the poor fellow too.
Many gamers are declaring their love for Kelvin, which I believe maybe is revealing a bit bit extra about themselves than maybe they notice. (“My best particular person is lobotomized and crudely makes an attempt to comply with all my instructions.”)
It seems it’s potential to clone Kelvin, permitting you to have as lots of him as you want. And every might be given separate directions, permitting you a whole Kelvin workforce busily finishing up your bidding!
Oh, and should you by accident kill your Kelvin (since you’d by no means do it on function, proper?), there’s truly a strategy to deliver him again.
So please, inform us your Kelvin tales. Should you’ve performed the sport, you absolutely have some.
