Could this be the next big horror game?

Cronos: The New Dawn is a new survival horror game that puts players in the shoes of a Traveler wearing a high-tech astronaut-like suit. Our mission is simple: fight back against a horrific plague known as the change.

This mysterious disease transforms people into monstrous creatures called orphans. To uncover the origins of the plague, you’ll travel through time to two distinct eras in Poland—the 1980s and the distant future. Your main goal is to collect “essences,” which are the souls or consciousness of the dead, while navigating a world filled with puzzles, exploration, and simple survival mechanics.

While the game’s story and world-building are solid, the survival horror genre is pretty saturated.

Apocalyptic narratives often follow a similar formula: uncovering secrets, exploring infected areas, dealing with jump scares, and scavenging for materials in a desolate world overrun by monsters. The success of games like The Last of Us and Dead Space has clearly inspired developers to dive into the genre.

So, can Cronos: The New Dawn offer something new to a genre that’s already full of similar games?

The Story at its Core

In a sea of survival horror games with a mysterious plague at their center, it’s not a stretch to have high expectations for the story of Cronos: The New Dawn.

We’re recruited by a secretive organization called the collective to collect essences from previous travelers and the dead. These essences are crucial for gathering information and unraveling the mystery behind the change.

Interestingly, these essences aren’t just collectibles—they’re the conscious minds of the deceased that will haunt your armor and trigger unique dialogue and even hallucinations. You can only carry a certain number of essences, and each one affects gameplay differently, adding a layer of strategy and consequences to your survival.

However, the game delivers its backstory through scattered audio logs and radio recordings, which can be a major issue for players. This method of storytelling is a big risk, as it’s easy for players to accidentally skip or miss key information. It works well for a game that already has a fanbase or a prequel, like The Last of Us, where players are motivated to find every detail to piece together the larger story.

In Cronos, a standalone title, this approach can make the plot confusing, especially when it jumps between timelines too quickly at the end without proper explanation.

Gameplay and Progression

Bloober Team, known for its work on titles like Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and The Medium, clearly understands what makes a horror game tick. Cronos avoids the bloated, over-long gameplay of some modern games, offering a tight experience that can be finished in under 20 hours for an efficient player.

The gameplay is quite traditional and doesn’t require the fast-paced, nimble combat of a souls-like game.

We can’t roll, jump, or parry.

Instead, we’ll need to be tactical with our limited resources.

Starting with just a pistol and six bullets, we’ll find ourself running from and outsmarting orphans, the game’s version of zombies. Combat is about aiming for weak spots and conserving our scarce ammo. We won’t find melee weapons here; our only option is to punch and stomp on enemies, which often isn’t enough to take them down (well.. it’s more like an impossible attempts, tho and there’s an achievement for it).

Exploration is linear and follows a well-trodden path that Bloober Team excels at. We’ll navigate a mix of foggy streets reminiscent of Silent Hill and cramped, claustrophobic indoor environments.

The developer’s love for jump-scares in tight spaces is on full display here (they really meant it).

Our traversal is tied to a checkpoint system called terminals. At these safe havens, we can buy ammo, potions, and equipment upgrades.

True to the survival genre, resource management is vital. Our inventory is small, forcing us to make tough choices about what to carry. We might have to sacrifice crafting materials for a specific item, or leave behind valuable loot to make room.

Upgrades for our weapons and armor are available but also compete for inventory space. We’ll also find some critical tools like a bolt cutter and grab boots that are also competing for our limited inventory.

We can also find cats in the game’s world that provide various rewards, including cores essential for armor upgrades.

Performance and Techical Issues

While the game delivers a tense atmosphere with impressive graphics, it’s not without its technical issues.

The PS5 version, for example, can suffer from stuttering, freezing, and inconsistent frame rates. The game offers two performance modes: Quality, which targets 30 FPS for better visuals, and Performance, which aims for a solid 60 FPS with a slight graphical reduction.

However, even in performance mode, we’ll still notice frame drops during intense explosion moments or when using our fuel torch. The game also has a few bugs, like getting stuck on objects or in doorways.

If you’re playing on console, it’s a good idea to turn off or reduce the aim-assist feature. It can often force you to lock on to targets, even when you need to aim at specific weak points, which is crucial during boss fights.

But, overall, these are issues that can be patched later and not as a game-breaking issue, which can annoy us a lot in the game.

Difficulty, Combat, and Boss Fights

The game offers a standard difficulty for your first playthrough. Finishing the game unlocks New Game Plus and Hard Mode. New Game Plus allows you to replay the story with all your previously acquired upgrades.

To get the game’s true ending, you have to play this mode.

One unique combat mechanic is the merge ability of the orphans. They can absorb other dead orphans to become stronger, similar to the Rat King from The Last of Us Part 2. To prevent this, you’ll need to burn them using limited torch fuel. You can also use the environment to your advantage by shooting flammable tanks and barrels to save ammo, especially when facing large groups or a boss.

Despite this, the boss fights can feel a bit repetitive, with many of them just being color or size variations of previous encounters.

This isn’t a major flaw, but it does make the fights less memorable.

Final Verdict

Ultimately, Cronos: The New Dawn feels like a passion project for Bloober Team, a studio that clearly loves making horror games. It’s a well-paced and polished experience that captures the same sense of dread and tension you might find in games like The Last of Us.

But, on the other hand, it also feels like a safe bet for a studio with such a strong portfolio.

While it’s a solid debut for a new IP, we hope to see Bloober Team push the boundaries and take more risks with future titles, much like they did with their earlier successes.

A solid single-player-jump-scare game that you need to play this year.

Recommended.