Children of the Forest: Kelvin’s weird behavior has already endeared him to fans

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Sons of the Forest has officially arrived in Early Access and one of the biggest talkers in the game has been Kelvin, an AI companion already well-liked by the community whose mission is to help you on your journey, even if he sometimes makes bizarre things and hilarious decisions.

For those unfamiliar, Kelvin is an elite soldier who survived the helicopter crash that left him stranded on the island featured in Sons of the Forest. Unfortunately for him, he has suffered brain damage and can no longer hear or speak, so players must communicate with him via a notepad. Despite his new injuries, he remains extremely useful… well, mostly.

The Sons of the Forest developers created Kelvin to help replicate the multiplayer experience for solo players, but he’s also very useful for anyone wanting to play Sons of the Forest with friends.

“We found in our first game, The Forest, that building and gathering resources in single-player can be a real chore compared to multiplayer, where you have multiple players helping out,” Endnight Games told IGN. “We wanted to address that and help bridge the gap between the two modes. At the same time, the new AI system we created for enemies/animals made it extremely easy to apply it to an AI character that was friendly.”

So this all sounds wonderful, right? A companion that’s always there to help with felling some trees, fishing, and more? While Kelvin is undoubtedly helpful, he does act a little strange from time to time. For example, you can tell him to chop down trees to gather wood, but some players have found that Kelvin doesn’t know the difference between an independent tree and those that are part of the tree house you built.

He also has a tendency to appear out of nowhere, and Reddit user /goodwill295 jokingly called him the biggest jumpscare in the game.

Image credit: Reddit user /goodwill295

Kelvin clearly plays by his own rules, and as IGN’s Mark Medina puts it, this fits perfectly with Sons of the Forest as “no rules, man, we’re screwed!”

Sure, he may have his moments, but the Children of the Forest community clearly wants to protect Kelvin with their lives.

Endnight Games has big plans for Kelvin, so this is really just the beginning for the favorite for best sidekick in a video game for 2023.

“Throughout Early Access, we plan to add many more tasks that Kelvin can perform, as well as integrating him more into the main story and giving him his own epilogue/ending if you keep him alive,” Endnight Games said.

Endnight is also very happy to see the community accept Kelvin so quickly, and the team knew they had something special on their hands from the start, as many “would make sure not to overwhelm him and others would feel guilty if they accidentally killed him.” “

Kelvin is just one part of Sons of the Forest, and you can check out our full preview of the game, where we said: “Sons of the Forest looks to evolve and develop every aspect of its predecessor with a focused aim of realism and development of a flexible ecosystem, and it feels like the building blocks are there to create something really special. But its killer feature is the addition of impressively sophisticated and smarter AI enemies and companions that could not only provide a huge leap forward for the series, but the survival game genre as a whole.”

To learn more, check out Endnight’s five tips on how to survive your first night in Sons of the Forest, our beginner’s guide, plus essential tips and tricks you need to know.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst is at Muscular contraction.

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