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Until recently, the only "game over" screens I've seen in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 were due to my own shoddy swordsmanship. It's rarely anything exciting – maybe I tried to pull off a flashy Master Strike and instead got a mace to the face, or picked a fight with bandits who in hindsight looked like two-legged tanks.
That changed during For Whom The Bell Tolls, a fairly early quest in the main story with ludicrously high stakes. The resulting stress – and a grand total of three game overs – has taken years off my life, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Article continues belowParty hard, Hans
When you turn up to party with Semine's well-to-do in Wedding Crashers, you're kept so busy that you might not even realize the door has been locked behind you. The in-world reason is that the gates are supposedly flocked with beggars – and besides, you've got a lot to crack on with in your quest to find an audience with Lord Otto von Bergow. But secretly, it's because Warhorse has no plans to let you stroll out of that wedding.
Throughout the ceremony, there's a lot to stay busy with. You can dabble in duels or dice, try your hand at romance, or play caretaker to several increasingly-hammered parties of revellers. You're also finally reunited with Ser Hans, who has spent his time apart from Henry definitely not poaching. But there are also copious opportunities for Henry to booze, and too many toasts begin to add up. As the sun sets on Bohemia, an entire day of drinking comes to a head with the fury of a thousand tipsy uncles. Henry gets into a brawl, starting a domino effect that draws in everyone with two fists and a wine-soaked brain, and the last thing we see before blacking out are the guards stepping in to quash the fledgling riot.
The next day, Henry and Hans wake up in a dungeon beneath Trosky – you know, that castle they've spent the whole game trying to get into? Even better, Henry's only got to run some errands before the guards will return his equipment and set him free. There's just one catch: remember that poaching Hans definitely didn't do? That's not entirely true, and since nobody will believe he's a noble, Hans is sentenced to death for the crime.
So begins For Whom The Bell Tolls, which tasks you with saving Hans before it's too late. Trosky's bells ring every hour, and at their 12th ring, the young noble has a date with the gallows. At first, I thought the game was bluffing, and that the threat was a thematic trick to add some urgency – I even spent some time trying to complete a totally irrelevant side quest about fetching a book for a local miller – but when the bell rang out for the 12th time, the game cut to black. Hans was dead. Oh shit.
It tolls for thee
Like any good immersive sim – and make no mistake, that's what For Whom The Bell Tolls is – everybody in Trosky needs something. The cook wants the blacksmith to open the dodgy lock on her spice chest, while the blacksmith wants Henry to lug charcoal and smithing horseshoes. The only person who could attest to Hans' nobility, Captain Thomas, is seemingly on his deathbed in a chapel at the top of a tower, while Trosky's chamberlain is too busy moaning about a stomach ache to offer any help. The bell rings.
Little of this seems relevant to Henry's quest to save Hans, but they're all threads on the same sticky web. In traditional RPG fashion, my seemingly-optional obligations quickly mount up. I come to grips with castle life – marking out individuals who seem helpful, noting the areas that I can and can't just stroll through – and in no particular order, start pitching in. The bell rings again. I decide to start with the chamberlain, who after speaking with, seems in desperate need of a digestive potion. I promise to help, and in return he grants me access to a great deal of the castle in order to use its laboratory. On a hunch, I crack the cook's spice chest open (after hauling charcoal for the blacksmith so he'll lend me lockpicks) and quietly fill my pockets with herbs, suspecting they'll come in handy for alchemy – and they do! It takes me two tries, but I whisk up just the thing to settle his stomach. In return, he grants me access to the chapel where Captain Thomas is dying.
By the time I've done all of that and spoken to Thomas' carer, Trosky's bell rings for the ninth time. Time's almost up. To wheel out our star witness, I spend the next few in-game hours searching for ingredients to make a fever tonic, desperately trying to follow the physician's vague scrawlings. Ginger is already sorted – thanks, spice chest – but feverfew and elderberry leaves prove harder to find, and I run out of time twice before I can find both. I find them on my third attempt, heart thudding as I grind and boil it all in the right order, and the bells strike 11 just as I wrap up. Thomas is at the other end of Trosky, so I bowl through the castle, fully expecting my screen to fade away at any moment.
I just make it. One sweaty witness and a last-minute arrival later, and Hans is safe. Call it giddiness, call it remembering to breathe again, but the resulting rush is immense. For Whom The Bell Tolls being timed is a risk – and probably one Warhorse didn't really need to take – but I'm grateful it did. The added pressure, combined with players already being on the back foot with all their gear gone, makes for a deeply memorable scramble that reminds me of the hours spent trying to save everyone as the Iron Throne sank in Baldur's Gate 3. Sometimes, it's scarier to have someone else's life in your hands – even if they are an insufferable blue-blood.
