If you’ve been playing Endnight’s excellent new survival game, Sons of the Forest, this week then you’ll know all about Kelvin. He’s the silent NPC who busily helps gather resources, food, supplies, and anything you ask of him while you’re off adventuring.
Kelvin is incredibly useful, though he often bumbles around and disobeys instructions; needless to say, our relationship started a little rocky. Slowly but surely, however, he proved his worth, and over the course of around 25 hours playing the game, I must confess to having grown rather fond of the man.
Unfortunately, in what came as a bit of a shock to the system, he’s now dead. It was my fault completely; I had no idea the veracious cannibals and mutants who raided our base could actually kill him, and so I left him alone to face their onslaught mistakenly thinking he’d just pull through. He didn’t.
He now lies deceased just outside my fort, his lifeless body never decomposing and serving as a constant reminder of my failure to protect him. I feel bad. Really bad. Kelvin helped me through thick and thin, pouring rain and driving wind. Through bitter winters he robotically cleared trees and waded through icy waters to collect dozens of fish while I stayed cozily inside by the fire.
In return, Kelvin was rewarded only with the occasional snack, as well as a cool jacket and shades I found before he was pummeled into the snowy ground by enraged, screaming freaks. So terrible have I felt about all this that I thought it would be nice to build a sort of shrine to his achievements.
It was the least I could do, right? And so I built it, and it stood proud protecting Kelvin from the elements and monsters and as a celebration of his selfless life as my friend (read servant).
Or so I thought. As it turns out, the cannibals seem to have some sort of strange vendetta against poor old Kelvin. Even in his endless sleep, there’s no respite for the poor lad. To my utter disbelief –and a buddy of mine who had joined my game–, the cannibals stomped their way into the shrine, picked up Kelvin, and threw his corpse out the window!
Rest assured, Kelvin’s brutal desecration was avenged mercilessly. No shortage of firepower was unleashed to ward off any other nasty cannibals from trying the same, and we’ve since not seen any try. But the real message here is one of regret and forewarning: don’t neglect Kelvin as I did during your time surviving Sons of the Forest.
Kelvin really is a trooper, and the completion of my elaborate island base has been made all the harder without his help. When I finally choose to make my escape, I’ll be gutted he’s not alongside me. Goodnight, sweet prince Kelvin.
PS. For those who have made the same blunder and want to revive Kelvin, it’s possible. You’ll need to manipulate your save game file, which you can read how to do here.
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