Keep a save before committing to the final assault
You can confront Brencis alone, join Lacra’s attack, or take the manumits’ route with Crake. You can also strike a bargain with Brencis. The route, whether your family is still alive and what you decide about individual characters are separate parts of the ending.
Create a separate manual save before accepting the departure conversation or entering the castle alone. Keep it after finishing the game. A later autosave inside Greifberg does not give you the same freedom to finish another ally’s preparations or collect equipment outside.
- Check the campaign clock. Saving your family depends on reaching the rescue before the 30-day deadline. Running out of time changes their fate; it does not remove every possible confrontation with Brencis.
- Finish the ally’s current objective. Lacra’s departure asks you to return the next night. The manumits have preparations and an outpost assault before Greifberg. Read the active objective instead of assuming every route is ready on the same day.
- Resolve optional business you care about. Buy missing manuals, finish conversations and collect equipment before leaving. The Svartrau ruins route supplies two unique swords and an armour lead.
- Prepare both equipment and abilities. Allocate points, check the abilities you have equipped and bring consumables suitable for the form you will use. A recommended level in a walkthrough is advice, not an unlock requirement.
- Preserve your difficulty run. Steam’s Uphill Battle description requires completing the whole game while saving Laslea’s people on the Duelist preset. Keep difficulty experiments in another save if that is your objective.
Save backups · Plan remaining goals and time · Healing and blood supplies
Use the departure task to identify your route
| Approach | Task to follow | Departure and preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Go alone | A Lone Wolf’s Hunt | Use Greifberg’s side entrance when ready to face Brencis without an ally’s assault. |
| Go with Lacra | Midnight Reckoning | Finish her preparations, return on the requested night and speak to her at the abandoned fort. The approach uses ruins beneath Svartrau. |
| Go with the manumits | Rise at Dawn, then Fall Before Dusk | Wait for the requested preparations, join the outpost operation and report to Marat when ready for the final strike. |
| Bargain with Brencis | A Deal with the Devil or the confrontation during the solo route | Read the offer and what information it asks you to betray before accepting. Having an invitation to parley does not itself commit you to the bargain. |
The Manumit achievement concerns learning Crake’s secrets through Distant Shadows and A Closer Look. It is different from the achievement for defeating Brencis with the rebels. If you want Crake’s personal story as well as that assault, finish those optional conversations before Rise at Dawn.
Lacra’s earlier quests · Crake’s story · Romance choices and conversations
Prepare for the court, the maze and the prison keys
The castle’s encounters depend on who remains alive. Killing a boyar earlier can replace that boss encounter with soldiers or another defender; it does not empty the castle. Keep resources available for the fights between named bosses.
On the solo route, search the rooms before Xanthe’s maze for the note about following banners. Look for the black eye with tentacles on a red field and use that emblem to choose the correct passage through the repeating rooms. The moving bookcase leads onward; repeated fighting alone does not solve the navigation puzzle.
Search defeated guards for the Key to the Upper Cells. Farther down, the hellhound handler carries a separate Prison Cells Key. Open the cells along the way and speak to the prisoners. Those two keys serve different groups of cells.
Before the final chamber, check your health, blood and consumables again. The Brencis fight guide explains the sword phase and the later Anachora attacks. If Xanthe is still part of your route, her glyphs and healing orbs need different responses.
What changes between the main endings?
The following sections reveal the result of each route. A family rescue and a political outcome can vary within the same assault.
Solo victory and The Folk Hero
Defeating Brencis through A Lone Wolf’s Hunt earns The Folk Hero. The journal distinguishes saving the family from avenging them after their deaths. Choose this route for the independent assault, but still finish before the deadline if the rescue is your goal.
After the fight you can leave Brencis to die or, through the concluding conversation, invite him in. This is a decision after defeating him. It is not the same as bowing to him before the battle.
Crake’s rebellion and The Knyazmaker
Fall Before Dusk is the rebels’ assault and the route associated with The Knyazmaker. Its journal endings distinguish whether Catalin survives to become ruler and whether Marat lives to see the victory. One outcome has Marat sacrifice himself to save Catalin; another leaves both alive.
Those character outcomes are additional branches, not alternative names for The Manumit. Keep a save before the final operation if you want to revisit the rebellion’s decisions.
Lacra’s Midnight Reckoning
Lacra’s attack enters through the underground ruins and continues through the castle with her. The journal allows both a family-rescue outcome and a revenge outcome if the family could not be saved. It also records abandoning the joint plan to face Brencis alone.
Finishing Lacra’s earlier quests and choosing her departure are separate steps. Follow Midnight Reckoning’s return-time instruction, then speak to her when ready rather than using the independent side entrance.
Brencis’s bargain and The Turncoat
Agreeing to Brencis’s terms can earn The Turncoat and leave him in power. In the solo-route journal, Coen gives information about either the rebels or Lacra in exchange for being allowed to leave with the surviving family members.
This ending trades an ally’s confidence for Brencis’s agreement. Save before accepting the dialogue if you want to return to a fight route; a surrender and an invitation after winning the boss battle are different decisions.
Early endings are separate from the campaign deadline
Some choices can end Coen’s story before the assault. Keep a manual save before following an invitation into an unfamiliar final scene, especially when the dialogue offers to remain somewhere permanently.
Home Sweet Home and Together Forever
The door at the top of Silts Tower leads into Home Sweet Home, a repeating return to the opening events with Coen’s family. Continuing to accept that loop leads to Together Forever. To keep your main campaign available, save before opening the door and use that save after viewing the outcome.
Complete four repetitions, then continue into the fifth return. That is a route through this specific early ending, not a requirement to finish the campaign five times.
Missing the 30-day rescue deadline is different: the final-assault journals still contain revenge outcomes. It should not be confused with choosing to remain in the Home Sweet Home loop.
Continue through Things Will Be Different Now
On the family-rescue solo route, the story continues after Brencis with errands around Laslea. Speak to Rainer about the blanket, obtain peat from Gavril, check the forest snares and help Pieter with the house repairs as your journal directs.
Once the errands are finished, visit Anca’s hut for the potion, then follow the nighttime route to the cave. The encounter with Neberu continues the question of Lunka’s future. The fight’s ending and the end of this epilogue are different stopping points; continue following the journal if you are aiming to finish the story.
Use your pre-assault manual save to explore another route afterward. A completed ending does not replace the preparations needed for another ally’s attack.
Sources
Sources on this page were reviewed September 28, 2026. The route comparison covers the named departures and outcomes above; individual character decisions can also change the ending scenes.
- In-game quest journals: Midnight Reckoning, Rise at Dawn, Fall Before Dusk, A Lone Wolf’s Hunt and Things Will Be Different Now — objectives and ending accounts, Steam build 25129649.
- IGN — solo assault, Brencis and the epilogue
- Steam — public achievement descriptions