The Bell Echoes

The Bell Echoes 1.0 Is Out Now!

The final chapter, 【Dawn of the Future】, is now available. See this journey through to the end with your companions.

Hello everyone!

Today, The Bell Echoes officially leaves Early Access and enters Version 1.0.

It has been more than half a year since we entered Early Access this February.

Over these months, we have added new chapters, new companions, and new Corrupted Zones, while revisiting characters, skills, enemies, difficulty, builds, and all kinds of details throughout the game again and again.

Some of these things were part of our plans from the very beginning.

Many others only started to take shape after the game was placed in your hands—through your feedback, your discussions, and even playstyles and ideas that we ourselves had never expected.

And today, with the final chapter now available, we can finally say:

The story of The Bell Echoes is complete.

The journey that began with Muge and his companions setting out from the monastery can finally be followed all the way to its end.

To everyone who has been with us throughout Early Access, thank you.

And to those stepping into Aetherland for the very first time today—welcome.

One Ever Bellflower, and a Journey to Find Their Father

Fifteen years ago, the Empire's history books declared the war won.

Fifteen years later, corruption still spreads across the continent of Aetherland, while the father of the two brothers still bears the name of a "traitor."

Following the Ever Bellflower left behind by their father, the brothers arrive at a monastery hidden deep within the mist.

At first, what they wanted was actually very simple.

Find their father.

And ask him, face to face:

What really happened fifteen years ago?

But that road eventually led them deeper and deeper into the corrupted lands—and into the lives of companions who each carried their own past.

Some live under the weight of misunderstanding.

Some are still trapped by what happened long ago.

And some are still searching for what they truly want to believe in.

After fighting side by side again and again, they gradually come to understand one another—and eventually find people and things they want to protect together.

Beyond the main story, the 【Memory Fragments】 you discover during your journey will also take you into the pasts of your companions, as well as those who came before them.

Stories never recorded in history.

Words that were never spoken aloud.

They may change the way you understand the people standing before you—and the choices they once made.

We have always hoped that, by the time you finish The Bell Echoes, what stays with you will not only be a beautifully played turn in battle.

Perhaps you will remember a certain person.

A certain argument.

A certain piece of the past.

Or simply one line that remains with you long after the story has ended.

Final Chapter 【Dawn of the Future】 — Journey to Starfall Lake

Version 1.0 opens Chapter 6:

【Dawn of the Future】.

The main story now enters its final chapter.

Following the clues they have pursued throughout their journey, the party will travel to the place where the great battle took place fifteen years ago—

【Starfall Lake】.

The questions surrounding their father, the secret of the Ever Bellflower, and the stories left behind by the previous generation will finally begin to converge.

For much of this journey, they have been chasing something left behind fifteen years ago.

But now that they have finally reached this place, the question is no longer simply:

"What happened in the past?"

Instead—

After learning the truth of the past, what kind of future will this generation choose for themselves?

We will leave this final stretch of the journey for you to experience for yourself.

New in Version 1.0

• Playable Companion 【???】
  A character who has already appeared in the story will officially join you as a playable companion, bringing an entirely new set of combat and build possibilities.

• New Corrupted Zone 【Starfall Lake】
  New battlefields, enemies, elites, bosses, and new mechanics designed around the game's final region await.

• Final Chapter and Final Battle
  The journey that began at the monastery hidden in the mist finally reaches its true conclusion.

Find Your Own Solution on a Small Battlefield

If this is your first time hearing about The Bell Echoes, it is a story-driven tactical Roguelite built around a three-character party.

But from the very beginning, we never really wanted to make a traditional tactics game where you simply "move a few tiles, then attack once."

In The Bell Echoes, movement itself is part of combat.

You can slam enemies into objects.

Throw your companions onto higher ground.

Use knockback, launches, pulls, and repositioning to reshape the battlefield.

Create terrain, then turn that terrain into damage or resources.

And by changing the order in which your three characters act, you can even connect abilities that initially seem completely unrelated into a single chain of actions.

Very often, the exact same situation can produce a completely different solution because of one different movement, one different collision, or simply a different turn order between your three characters.

During each journey through a Corrupted Zone, 【Skill Insights】 can directly change how abilities are used.

Each character's three talent paths, together with equipment and Gems, can also push that same character toward completely different builds and playstyles.

One of the things we love most is when players discover some strange combination and tell us:

"I didn't know a tactics game could play like this."

In a way, that is probably the sentence we most wanted to hear when we first started building this combat system.

From Early Access to 1.0

When The Bell Echoes first entered Early Access this February, the game included:

The Prologue through Chapter 3, five playable characters, and three Corrupted Zones.

Over the following months, we slowly continued building out this world.

With Chapter 4, 【Chris】 joined the party, along with the new Corrupted Zone 【Volcanic Region】.

In Chapter 5, 【Darkest Dawn】, 【Syl】 joined the party and the new Corrupted Zone 【Imperial Capital Dungeon】 was introduced.

And today, Chapter 6, 【Dawn of the Future】, is finally complete.

At the same time, many systems that now feel like natural parts of the game were added or rebuilt throughout Early Access.

Battle rewind, Story Mode, Memory Fragments, the Gem Workshop, Ore and Gem crafting, Tier 4 Gems, Attribute Resonance, out-of-run character progression, Skill Insight preferences...

Character skills, talents, Skill Insights, equipment, the damage formula, difficulty settings, onboarding, and the overall combat experience also went through many rounds of adjustment.

Some systems are almost completely different from what they were when Early Access first began.

Some of those changes came from us looking at something and thinking:

"This is not good enough. We should rebuild it."

Many others began with players telling us:

This part feels awkward.

This could be more interesting.

This skill seems pretty ordinary—but what if it could work like this?

And then we would go back, take another look, and realize—

...Actually, maybe it really could.

So if you played The Bell Echoes during the early days of Early Access, but stepped away for a while—

We would genuinely love to welcome you back.

The characters, builds, and battles have changed a great deal since then.

About Early Access / Demo Save Data

Save data from both the Early Access version and the Demo can be carried directly into Version 1.0. You do not need to start over.

Players who have already completed Chapter 5 will be able to continue into the final chapter, 【Dawn of the Future】, once the corresponding requirements have been met.

Full Release Price and Launch Discount

As previously announced, the full release price of The Bell Echoes in China will be ¥68 RMB.

During the launch period:

• September 28 – October 5: The ¥58 launch price will receive an additional 10% discount, bringing the final price to ¥52.2 RMB

• After the first-week discount ends through October 28: The launch price will remain ¥58 RMB

• After October 28: The price will return to the full ¥68 RMB

Please refer to the Steam store page for the exact end times of each discount period.

If you already own The Bell Echoes, you do not need to purchase it again. Your copy will automatically become the Version 1.0 release.

After 1.0

Reaching full release does not mean we are going to stop touching The Bell Echoes from this day forward.

We will continue listening to your feedback, fixing bugs, adjusting balance, and improving the overall experience.

We also have a few ideas for future content and ways the game might continue to grow.

But we will talk about those when they are truly ready.

For today, we would rather let Version 1.0 have its moment—and let this finally completed journey take center stage.

Thank You for Coming This Far with Us

During Early Access, you gave us a lot.

Some of you helped us hunt down bugs.

Some repeatedly helped us improve the localization.

Some carefully analyzed whether a particular skill was too weak.

Others discovered builds we had never even imagined ourselves, then wrote out the entire idea for us to read.

And of course, some of you got absolutely destroyed by certain bosses, then came back to tell us exactly how ridiculous they were.

All of that feedback, discussion, and even the complaints gradually became part of the version you are seeing today.

For an independent developer, perhaps the most special thing about Early Access is this:

You do not finish everything first and only then hand the game to the players.

You put a game into their hands while it is still growing—

and then, somehow, there are people who are willing to grow alongside it.

So thank you to everyone who bought The Bell Echoes while it was still incomplete.

Thank you for waiting for the later chapters.

For telling us when something did not work.

And also for telling us, when we got something right:

"This is pretty fun."

And if Version 1.0 is your first time meeting us—

welcome.

You can now leave the monastery behind and follow this journey all the way to its true conclusion.

If you enjoy your time with The Bell Echoes, we would also be very grateful if you left an honest Steam review of your experience.

Whether positive or negative, it means a great deal to us.

—

That is probably everything we wanted to say about the Version 1.0 update itself.

But before we finish, I would like to step away from the usual developer announcement voice for a moment and say a few things of my own.

A Few Words at Version 1.0

It has honestly been a very, very long time since I last spoke openly about how I feel.

So while I have the chance, I want to say some of it now.

Some longtime players may remember that The Bell Echoes was not always called The Bell Echoes.

It was once called—

The Book of Warriors II: Reborn.

In 2023, our studio's first game, The Book of Warriors, reached a very difficult point in its development.

Back then, I kept asking myself a lot of questions.

Can you really survive just by keeping your head down and making games?

If we spend all that time rebuilding everything just to realize the ideas we truly want to make, where will it lead us?

Will we even get another chance to make the next game?

Or, more simply—

Will we still be able to make games at all?

At the time, I gave the new project a name.

"Reborn."

I once wrote:

"What if we call the new game Reborn?... What if we let the game be reborn? Let everything be reborn?"

Looking back now, I can barely remember exactly how these years of development passed.

I only remember that, for a very long time, it felt like walking forward through complete darkness.

I could not see what was ahead.

I did not know how far we would be able to go.

Sometimes I would crouch down.

Then stand back up.

Then take one more step forward.

I never truly let go of the failure of The Book of Warriors, or of the things people said about it.

Even this January, just before The Bell Echoes entered Early Access, I still found myself scrolling through those old reviews late at night.

At the time, I wrote:

"I wonder what they will say when The Bell Echoes is finally put in front of them..."

And:

"Soon... I'm really looking forward to it."

Thinking about it now, that is kind of strange.

I had already gone through something deeply painful because of one game.

And yet I still wanted to put another game I had made in front of everyone and let them judge me all over again.

Maybe that is just how I make games.

I do not think I have ever been very interested in making something when I already know exactly what it will look like before I even begin.

I love tactics games.

So I keep asking questions.

Why can't movement itself be part of the combat?

Why can't enemy behavior change in real time with every tile the player moves?

Why should a new character merely have a different set of skills?

Why can't they change the way the entire battle is played?

And then, like fools, we really did start building those ideas one piece at a time.

Sometimes we made something, looked at it, and realized it was wrong.

So we tore it down.

And started again.

And many of the "crazy ideas" that once existed only in our heads eventually became a skill, a character, or a battle inside The Bell Echoes.

When I first started working on The Book of Warriors II: Reborn, I honestly was not thinking that far ahead.

I just wanted one thing:

Please, let the studio survive.

Please, let me keep making games.

Then, one day, we let go of the name The Book of Warriors II.

It became The Bell Echoes.

Looking back now, I increasingly feel that perhaps this was the real meaning of "Reborn."

Not bringing the past back to life.

But finally being able to move beyond it—

and create a game that could stand on its own.

Today, The Bell Echoes has reached Version 1.0.

I do not know how many copies it will eventually sell.

I do not know how people will remember it in the future.

But there is at least one question I can finally answer for the person I used to be.

The one who once asked:

"Will we still be able to make games?"

Yes.

We are still making them.

And we really did finish this one.

Thank you.

Because of you, I am still able to make games.

—Gtc

"In this world, no dawn shall ever break, yet the long night shall, at last, scatter into oblivion."

From the monastery where the journey began, to the final road leading to Starfall Lake—

Thank you for staying with them until the end, and for staying with us all the way to today.

The Bell Echoes Version 1.0 is out now.