Ruthenium polypyridyl complexes are widely used scaffolds for photoactivated chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy in the treatment of cancers as well as imaging applications due to their beneficial photochemical and photophysical properties, such as advantageous luminescence and generation of reactive oxygen species. Their favorable photochemical reactivity can also be leveraged for the release of bioactive ligands, such as a chemotherapeutic or other such pharmacologic agent, to imbue further functionality to the complex. In this work, we devised a series of bis-bipyridine ruthenium complexes with a well-established hydrogen sulfide (H2S) donor ligand GYY4137, bound in a bidentate fashion. These complexes were designed to significantly attenuate photochemical GYY4137 release and thereby afford greater temporal resolution to H2S delivery. Modulation of the electronic properties of the bpy ligand gives rise to a diversity of reactivity profiles across the series. In this work we aim to map trends therein against the chemical properties of the ancillary bipyridine ligands. We further employed density functional theory to enhance our understanding of the observed reactivity in the context of other similar ruthenium polypyridyl complexes