We love The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom's silly sign man
An ode to Addison the sign man, who's here to teach Tears Of The Kingdom players about how not to fight against gravity
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Advertising fills the world of modern video games—in part, for a bit of added verisimilitude, and, more often than not, as a sneaky little bonus revenue stream for the publisher. But who puts up these signs? Who scales the scaffolds, paints the pitches, adroitly assembles the ads?
In Nintendo’s phenomenally fun new The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, all of those responsibilities fall on the shaky shoulders of one guy. His name is Addison The Ad Man, he’s an idiot, and we love him oh so much.
Players will likely meet Addison not too terribly long into their time with Tears Of The Kingdom, as he’s posted—pun intended—near Lookout Landing, the first town you see once you’ve made it back to Hyrule a few hours into the game’s beginning. He’s the guy holding up the sign. That’s pretty much all he does.
In a game where characterization is already typically pretty thinly sketched, Addison barely even scrapes the pencil: He has one major character trait, which he pursues with his whole heart. That is, he loves Mr. Hudson, the construction magnate pictured on his various signs, and he’ll do anything (except any kind of movement or basic carpentry whatsoever) to ensure that advertisements proclaiming Hudson’s greatness are visible throughout the kingdom. The only issue being that, while Addison’s signs do vary a bit, they all have one major shared characteristic: They don’t have a second leg to hold them up.
Addison is, in other words, a physics puzzle just waiting for the player to stumble upon, inadvertently inviting you to figure out how to maneuver planks and boards underneath the far end of the sign so that this poor bastard can rest his arms for a second without his beloved Mr. Hudson smacking into the ground. As we said, the signs (and nearby materials) vary just enough to keep this little task interesting: One sign might have an obvious notch for a board to slip into; another might have some kind of hook arrangement you can make use of; a third (because Addison does get around, apparently using all that movement energy he saves up by doing isometrics any time we’re around to book it across Hyrule) might be in an area typically afflicted by rainshowers, making the whole ordeal far more slippery.
All well and good: Playing with Link’s new Ultrahand ability is one of the core joys of Tears, and we’re happy to have basically any excuse to do so. But Addison worms his way into our hearts especially because he’s so incredibly hapless, but also dedicated to his very dumb job. Someone gave him 3/4s of a sign, he’s apparently never heard of “adding a second leg” to anything, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to budge from those basic principles. Oh, and god help you if his beloved Mr. Hudson gets too close to the ground, or, dear Christ, topples over completely: The poor guy goes instantly apoplectic, forcing you to start all over again. It’s one of those clever ways that Tears Of The Kingdom builds its tutorializing into its cheerful, colorful world, taking a basic quiz on physics and turning it into this poor dude’s ongoing existential crisis. It’s charming as hell and it makes you feel like a genius when you work out how to solve the task; a pretty good encapsulation of the great stuff about Tears Of The Kingdom in a nutshell.
Plus: He gives you cash, rice balls, and a free hotel room every time you help him out. Thanks, Addison! You’re the best. Please take a class on what gravity is.