People Can’t Get Enough Of Kit Harington’s ‘SNL’ Sketch About Annoying Video Game Characters

From Theresa May’s handling of Brexit to Kit Harington’s beardless face, nothing was safe on this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live. Not even non-playable characters (NPCs) in virtual reality video games. In the pre-recorded sketch “New Video Game,” Pete Davidson stops by a gaming store to try out a new (fictitious yet believable) VR rig for the popular (and also fictitious) game Earth War 3. The result Several minutes worth of Davidson becoming increasingly frustrated with Harington, Ego Nwodim and Mikey Day’s annoying NPCs.

TL;DR Davidson’s player enters the world of Earth War 3, specifically a safe house run by Damien (Harington) and worked by Ethan (Day) and Nox (Nwodim). Every time the former tries to advance through the game’s story or at least try to get a weapon before venturing outside into the zombie apocalypse, the NPCs interrupt his gameplay with an increasingly useless discussion of the drama between Ethan and Damien. Even a zombie played by Chris Redd interrupts his attack to ask about it!

Between Davidson virtually punching Harington’s character in order to make him stop and his hilariously frustrated screams, “New Video Game” is a very entertaining sketch. It’s also, as many gamers and video game industry professionals who tuned in to watch it explained on social media, pretty accurate.

— drew olanoff (@yoda) April 7, 2019

I'd play this game for real tho.https://t.co/fXBeBt7Fpj

— Hannah Hart (wrote a new cookbook!) (@harto) April 7, 2019

Oh my. @nbcsnl had a #VR skit tonight. #SNL pic.twitter.com/zgiwmMBU3D

— Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo) April 7, 2019

Oh my god. The #VR NPC skit on #SNL. pic.twitter.com/LQFoKZgEkS

— Amber Osborne (@MissDestructo) April 7, 2019

i liked the npc snl sketch (ducks)

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) April 7, 2019

As Kotaku and others astutely noted, the sketch at times worked as a direct parody of specific games, including Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 and Anthem.

— (@mattstaggs) April 7, 2019

this was an #AnthemGame parody lol stupid game is just like this https://t.co/L9j9VwP59f

— Gene Park (@GenePark) April 7, 2019

Either way, it seems everyone loved it.

— Paolo Pedercini (@molleindustria) April 7, 2019

That NPC sketch on #SNL makes me want to fire up Fallout 4 and murder Preston Garvey. pic.twitter.com/ixqfPqPJ14

— Jamie McCarty (@JamieMcCarty) April 7, 2019