There's a big element of time involved in the game. Everything you do in the game takes time and the clock never stops ticking. The truck carrying the explosives would be held up at a bridge for about three hours. If I didn't get there in time or failed in the mission, the explosives would reach France and the SS man and my party member would become my enemies -- which would mean another mission to take them out. Of course, I could have just taken on every bandit in his camp and killed them all, which might have presented its own problems when the gangster who ran the area demanded I make up for the revenue shortfall.

All these strategic decisions have a profound impact on the way the game is played -- even on a tactical level. There's still plenty of combat, but while in a war I might think nothing of taking down a house to wipe out a squad of troopers, now everything I was doing had consequences. I simply couldn't destroy everything I came across because it might have drastic consequences down the road. Kill the wrong NPC and suddenly a source of weapons or information is no longer available. Destroy a house belonging to the English Ambassador and all of a sudden the polizei presence on the street gets amped up considerably -- not a good thing for a spy who eventually wants to come in out of the cold.​