“It's not. And it never will be. Trust me.”
— Charon/Kevin's response to Logan on the world's future never being normal again
Kevin "Charon" Barrister is a survivor featured in Dead Island. He is located inside the Prison, and was part of a group of survivors led by Titus Kabui. It's implied that the hacker that is mentioned at the end, Charon, is actually Kevin. This is later confirmed in Ryder White's Campaign. This reveal confirms Charon as one of the main antagonists of the game, alongside his employers, the Consortium.
Past[]
Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Kevin Barrister was the son of Dr. Chase Barrister, a brilliant scientist who was eventually recruited by his friend, Ronald Crown, to co-found a Pharmaceutical Company known as GeoPharm. The purpose of the company was to research the worst diseases and ailments known to humanity and develop cures for them. Chase agreed and the pair founded the organization's headquarters within San Francisco, slowly but surely expanding their operations across the world, recruiting the brightest scientists and minds, and constructing several labs to support their efforts.
One area that became pivotal to the organization was the Banoi Archipelago, several islands that hosted luxurious resorts, lush tropical jungles, sandy beaches, and beautiful cities, but also various diseases, such as kuru, born from the indigenous tribes still occupying some of the islands, that mutated into truly deadly and fatal viruses that seemed incurable. To begin researching these diseases, Chase and Ronald constructed several labs throughout the archipelago, especially on Narapla, where villages and homes were also set up to serve as residences for the scientists and their families, including Chase, his wife, and his son Kevin. It is implied that Kevin was still a child when living with his family on Narapela.
Eventually, Chase made a breakthrough in the form of Hewitt Kahn enzyme accelerator, or HKEA. HKEA is a virus originally developed to combat kuru, and is capable of being programmed to express proteins as desired. Initially, it is tested on anemones which are then infected with kuru; these results are promising, but insufficient. The research team requests human subjects. Since infecting humans with kuru would be unethical, the team tests Kuru against ADAR1, an RNA-editing enzyme which the team believes will cause a safe level of mutation. Some tests subjects are exposed, either accidentally or intentionally, to HKEA programmed to express the kuru protein itself.
While they were continuing tests on this enzyme, Emory Crown, Ronald's son, found out about this and was very interested in it, as were his 'associates'. These people belonged to a secret global order called the 'Palm Garden Order', which was part of much larger collective society known as the Consortium, and because Ronald didn't trust them, he tried to keep HKEA away from them as much as possible. Chase continued to experiment with HKEA during this time and while doing so, they discovered that it was still very dangerous and not safe to unveil to the public, as it caused cancerous growth on the tissue it repaired.
Then, the unthinkable happened and a researcher that was appointed by the Palm Garden Order conducted an unscheduled test of HKEA on a test subject, which ended in the agonizing death of the subject. Chase and Ronald were horrified at this, but before anything could be done, Emory kidnapped his father and forced him to sign ownership of the company to him. Just before this, Ronald warned Chase to escape the island with his young son Kevin Barrister.
Before he could, however, Emory caught up with him and 'made an example' of him to his followers and those of the Palm Garden Order. It's not known what he exactly did to Chase, but it's likely that he killed him in some way, whether it was just making him disappear or some darker ritualistic murder it's not known. The organization had soon set its sights on Kevin's mother as well, seeing her as a loose end needed to be tied up, and while Kevin was able to hide and protect her, it came at a cost. Charon's various logs imply that his mother was horribly mutilated, most likely as an unwilling subject in the Consortium's experiments to keep her quiet on their illegal activities, before Kevin saved her, with her pain and eventual death, alongside the loss of his father, fueling his hatred.
With his family destroyed, Kevin lost all sense of morality and reason and sought to not only avenge his mother and father against the PGO and the Consortium, but also make the world suffer in turn as well. Perverting his immense intellect and everything he learned from his father, Kevin turned to criminal activities that made use of his computer hacking and technological skills. Over the years, Kevin gained a notorious reputation and rose throughout the criminal underworld until even terrorist organizations took notice of his unique skills and hired him for their own operations. Within these criminal and terrorists circles, Kevin became widely known as "Charon," his self-appointed title and alter-ego, working for various terrorists organizations from Al Qaeda to Yakuza.
However, Kevin's aims were much larger in scope and simply a long-term game to set the stage for his true plans and schemes for revenge and destruction. Kevin's notorious career as a hacker for hire working with various terrorist organizations was actually simply a means to eventually gain the attention of the Consortium and hired in their employ, as well as build up adequate funding for his schemes and future activities, adopting the alias of "Charon" as a symbol of his lust to ferry the souls of his father's killers to their afterlife. Pulling the last string, Charon allowed himself to get captured in order to be sentenced to the Maximum Security Prison on Banoi, which was used to house only the most notorious terrorists in the world, situating himself in an ideal environment to be hired by the Consortium for their operations on Banoi.
True to his predictions, the organization eventually sought out to hire Charon, knowing of his skills and how invaluable they could be for their plans of surveilling and luring the immune to their researchers to create a mutagen of the virus and a corresponding vaccine, promising him a considerable profit and freedom for his assistance, which he agreed to. Having effectively infiltrated the Consortium, not being recognized as the son of one of the GeoPharm's cofounders, Charon planned to create the weaponized virus and use it to destroy the organization, along with most of the world, from within as a twisted form of poetic justice. Once he secured his revenge, it is implied that Charon would then auction off the immune to the highest bidder to develop a vaccine to cure what's left of the world and then live his life, content with immense wealth and fulfilled vengeance over the people who destroyed his family.
Dead Island[]
The Hero meets him during the quest Full Metal Jacket, in which the Hero must gain access to the armoury. Kevin is waiting outside the door, but needs the master key. He gives the Hero the side quest Locked Armory, in which the Hero must retrieve the master key. Once he has the master key, the Hero will need to protect Kevin while he unlocks the door. Later on, Kevin assists the Hero in escaping in Colonel White's helicopter. He escapes the island of Banoi with the Heroes and Yerema.
Ryder White's Campaign[]
When Kevin meets Ryder White during the events of Ryder White's Campaign, Ryder immediately recognizes Kevin as the hacker Charon. Kevin/Charon was also revealed to be the real voice on the radio and he was working with Doctor West and eventually causing his downfall by releasing the infected in the cages. His actions in the story revealed that he was intending to spread the disease all around the world and that he tricked White into doing his bidding under the pretence that he could still help out White's infected wife, which he was doing before White arrived to the prison.
Dead Island: Riptide[]
After landing the helicopter aboard the HMAS Avenger, a military patrol ship located off the coast of Banoi, Charon is arrested along with Yerema and the Banoi survivors and relocated to another destination. However, Yerema was transported to another lab outside the archipelago in order to ensure the experiments of the Consortium (the same organization that hired Charon and manipulated Colonel Ryder White and the events of Banoi and Palanai) to weaponize her condition for profit would continue unhindered.
The secret files that can be found and collected throughout the game specify that Serpo was ordered by the Consortium to send Charon to their headquarters for debriefing. This confirms that Charon was not arrested nor aboard the HMAS Avenger or on the island of Palanai when the outbreaks occurred but was instead relocated to the organization's headquarters. These files also detail the organization's suspicions that Charon has his own agenda which does not directly align with the plans of the organization. While the organization is primarily motivated to weaponize and test the virus and develop a vaccine in order to ensure that it can be sold to various militaries throughout the globe for massive profit, Charon is only concerned in spreading the virus throughout the world as a twisted form of revenge for the organization's role in the death of his father.
This was previously hinted in the original Dead Island, where Charon released the laboratory infected to kill Dr. West and his associates when the scientist revealed his intentions to create a vaccine under the orders of the organization. Charon's logs in Escape Dead Island further establish that Charon's entire career as an expert hacker working for various terrorist organizations was simply part of his plans to be noticed by the organization and recruited for his skills. Charon's end goal was to effectively infiltrate the organization to destroy them from the inside out, with the rest of the world serving as collateral damage, with the very same biological weapons they hoped to profit from.
With Charon relocated back at the organization's headquarters, it has yet to be seen what his or the organization's next move will be.
Escape Dead Island[]
While he doesn't make a physical appearance in the game, he has left behind a series of logs, which act as one of the game's collectibles. Through these logs you find out what his motives for the outbreak are and what his goals are. From these logs, you discover that he found out about GeoPharm's nefarious goals and decided to rise up against them. When he fought back, however, GeoPharm experimented on and killed his family, both his mother and his father who was working at GeoPharm. He abandoned GeoPharm and joined a secret organization to take them down from within. He wants to unleash their creations on the world as revenge for their destruction of his family. His only physical appearance in the game is during a cutscene in the prologue when Kilo 2 kills the mole within the GeoPharm labs and talks to Charon over the phone the mole was using.
Dead Island: The Book[]
In the book, he serves the same purpose but he's very different. He's far bolder, confronting the heroes as the typical shrewd, intelligent villain who knows all and sees all. However, the façade of 'Kevin' is quickly dropped and he turns real evil real quick. The heroes never find out his real identity in the game, whereas after they get gassed in the book, he outright tells them and handcuffs them. He reveals that he's a part of a group called 'The Organization' and he plans to auction off Yerema to the highest bidder when he gets her out, while he also reveals that he's the cause of West's death at the Lab after he had developed a cure by releasing the infected being held in the lab. He's the real main villain and dictates the whole final fight and scene in the book, playing White through the whole book and keeping the heroes in handcuffs while on the roof.
Appearance[]
Kevin is a middle to older aged man with shaved brown hair and a goatee. He wears an orange jumpsuit, a black undershirt, and black and white sneakers. He also wears a brown belt around his waist and glasses.
Quotes[]
“Indeed I am, Colonel. Named for the ferryman of Hades who transported the dead on the River Styx. But right now, your wife is still among the living, sir. And I can keep her that way if you do everything I say.”
— Charon/Kevin, after being recognized by Ryder
“A supervirus derived from a mummy. I'll call it the Pharaoh's Curse...”
— Charon/Kevin
“And what would they have done? They wouldn't even know where to look! Who told you about the virus and gave Emily the medicine to slow it down? I betrayed the consortium for you...”
— Charon/Kevin, trying to reason with Ryder
Trivia[]
- In Greek Mythology, Charon (also known as Kharon) was the ferryman that carried souls of the deceased across the river Styx. The explanation for this nickname was later confirmed by Kevin in Ryder White's Campaign.
- Kevin's secret identity as Charon was subtly implied during the ending when he smiled at the prospect of the world never being the same as he flew the helicopter.
Gallery[]
