Cronos: The New Dawn Review

It’s fair to say that developer Bloober Team has had somewhat of a mixed reception. Their previous original IP, The Medium, was not received well at all, despite some interesting ideas, and they were met with unjust pushback when announced as the developer for the highly anticipated Silent Hill 2 Remake. Fortunately, they smashed it out of the park with the remake, making it one of my favorite horror titles in a long time.

It’s not even been a year since that was released, and now they have their next original IP, Cronos: The New Dawn, a Sci-Fi horror epic set against the backdrop of Nowa Huta, a Polish district in Krakow, following a world-shattering event known as The Change, leaving it as a desolate wasteland haunted by chilling abominations.

You awaken as The Traveler, one of only a few who can brave this new world on a directive from someone known as The Collective, in the hopes of seeking out time rifts.

As you take your first steps on your mission, you can see that it looks doomed to fail.

But you must press on, such is our calling.

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The environments are always on point in Cronos: The New Dawn.

A Desolate Wasteland Haunted by the Past

As mentioned at the top, The Traveler awakens to the monster-infested ruins of Nowa Huta following The Change, and your first and only directive appears to be to follow in your predecessor’s footsteps. In this future, these Travelers follow the Vocation on a directive from a voice known as The Collective. Their goal is to find time rifts, access the past, and locate specific targets they wish to ascend. Without spoiling the game’s story, this is only the beginning of the threads that need to be entangled.

The protagonist, The Traveler, starts as nothing more than a robotic husk blindly following orders that you’re given. It’s not until after the first dive (using a time rift to go back to the past) that she begins to form her own opinions and emotions on what’s going on around her and the larger mystery at play. The character development of the Traveler really drew me in, and I felt invested in her own personal journey on top of the wider mystery at hand. The story slightly changes based on some of the choices you have throughout, as well as what Essences you have on you. This, however, is not all there is to the story, and where I feel Cronos: The New Dawn shines the most.

The atmosphere of the areas that you visit tells its own story, be it the foggy streets of Nowa Huta or the remains of an apartment block; it brings you right into the moment and makes every moment more tense. The star of the show, however, is the environmental storytelling. You arrive in a future where humanity is no more, just the remains of what was once a functioning society, but the notes and travelogues left behind (of which there are many) or the graffiti and scratches on the walls in authentic Polish (you can translate these on screen by simply aiming at them, a very nice touch) reveal the anguish, the terror, and the circumstance of what happened during the early stages of the pandemic, to the final throes of The Change’s devastating effects.

So, when all is said and done, does the story stick the landing? I felt a personal satisfaction with how it was wrapped up, with enough choices that make me want to dive right back in for another playthrough to explore what other outcomes there may be. If many people were afraid of Bloober Team’s writing on their own original IP, then they should know that the writing is some of the best I’ve seen from the team.

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You’ll meet an interesting cast of characters in Cronos: The New Dawn.

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Every new area is both chilling and atmospheric.

Engaging, Satisfying Combat

A lot has been made of the look of Cronos: The New Dawn, often drawing comparisons to games such as Dead Space, down to the design of the monsters and perhaps The Traveler herself. That’s probably where the comparisons end, as when it comes to combat, Cronos probably shares more in common with titles such as Resident Evil 4 (even down to how you upgrade your weapons) than the former.

Despite their appearance, you won’t be trying to dismember these monsters to defeat them; instead, you’ll shoot them normally and look to use fire whenever you have the opportunity. After the opening of the game, you’ll soon get access to the Torch, a flamethrower-like weapon that uses limited ammo (that you can restock at save stations) to either set enemies ablaze or remove Biomass, the fleshy remains of The Change that blocks your way.

Where Cronos does change from something like Resident Evil 4 is the heavy emphasis on charging your shots. This is done by holding down the trigger button and has different effects for every weapon. Your starting handgun will see your shots become more powerful, while the first Shotgun will widen the spread and increase its power. These are just two examples, and there are enough weapons for you to get stuck in with and play around with to find that perfect blend of what you need for every situation. It does, however, seem that you really do need to engage with the charged shots to be effective in combat, as the drop-off in performance and damage is too great.

The other mechanic that is unique to Cronos is the merge mechanic; every monster you fight in the game can use the bodies of others to merge with them, causing them to have more health, gain new abilities, and just become altogether more deadly. How do you get by this? The Torch, of course! Provided you have the ammo, you can use it on the corpses you come across to permanently burn them away. This will prevent enemies from being able to use them in combat. As the game reaches its final stretch, however, there will usually be more corpses scattered around than you have the resources for.

There is, however, a case to be made about a lack of enemy variety. Throughout my playthrough, I maybe experienced five different enemy types. Although, to be fair to Cronos, enemies do get stronger and combine abilities based on if they merge with other enemies, which does change things up a little and force you to stay on the offensive.

Outside of this, combat areas usually feature multiple explosive cannisters for you to make use of, and once you get your hands on a tool that allows you to activate time anomalies, you’ll even be able to materialize these explosive cannisters, making them a handy and often crucial piece of the combat puzzle. After all, Cronos: The New Dawn is a survival horror game, and it couldn’t be truer here.

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Monsters have a number of ways they can attack you.

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Combat is, however, often challenging.

Combat is tough, and you may die often, although there are frequent enough checkpoints and save stations that you never feel you lose too much progress. Perhaps the trickiest part, though, is that ammo and resources are scarce; you really do feel like you have to make every bullet count, and you feel the pain of missing a shot. Although you can craft ammo and healing items at will, the materials needed to do so (in the form of Chemicals and Metal Scraps) are scarce themselves, making that an important decision too. I often found myself low on ammo throughout my entire playthrough and had to scramble to look for breakable boxes in the hopes of finding ammo there.

This brings us to the other piece of the survival horror puzzle: you have limited inventory slots. You start the game with just six slots, and outside of the Torch (which is always permanently available) and your crafting resources (they have their own space, of which you can upgrade how many you can hold of each), everything else will take up a slot. Weapons, key items, and especially ammo and healing items, which also have a limit to how many can be stacked in a single slot. You do have the ability to upgrade how many inventory slots you have, and there is a storage container in save rooms that you will need to make use of.

This creates a situation where you need to think about what you bring into an encounter. Often dying can be enlightening, as you’ll know what to expect next time, allowing you to bring more ammo or healing items. This is especially true of the boss encounters, which vary to a great degree and are challenging enough that more often than not, you won’t kill them on the first attempt.

Exploring Nowa Huta

Outside of combat, Cronos plays like a typical survival horror game with a few twists of its own. Shortly into the adventure, you’ll get the ability to manipulate time anomalies with a tool you get; this will alter the environment around you to create pathways for you. You’ll later find specific areas to use gravity boots to leap across massive chasms or walk on the walls and ceiling as the perspective shifts around you.

You can also expect to find locked doors, switches you need to throw, and many other staples of the genre. It’s not linear either, as there are often areas you can go to that may reward you with more precious resources, or to one of the game’s two collectibles, which includes petting cats! There are enough puzzles to get your teeth stuck into, and it’s almost worth it for the areas you visit, which are thick with atmosphere.

At certain points in the adventure, Cronos pulls almost a reverse Silent Hill, interestingly enough, as instead of visiting a nightmare world (in Silent Hill), you’ll travel back to the past at the point of the height of The Change, and seeing how it all unfolded and the main players, who are often your current target.

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The environmental storytelling is a highlight of Cronos: The New Dawn.

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You will need to use these time anomalies to solve a number of puzzles.

Fit for Purpose

The Essences that you collect also play into the gameplay, as you can only have three at any time, and they grant you great passive effects. The first essence, for example, increases the damage against enemies that are on fire, while another may increase the amount of Energy (the game’s main currency) you get from pickups. They’ll also affect the story based on what Essences you have at specific times in the game, increasing replay value on future playthroughs.

Upgrades themselves work very similarly to the system found in Resident Evil 4; whenever you reach save rooms, you’ll find a terminal that can be used to spend the Energy you’ve accumulated to upgrade your weapons and buy items. The upgrades can vary on each weapon, but at the base level are usually for attack power, clip size, charge speed, reload speed, and stability. You’ll be limited on how far you can upgrade these based on your story progression, however, meaning you won’t be able to go all out on a weapon straight from the get-go. You can, however, reset your upgrades for a nominal cost of Energy and get it all back, prompting experimentation.

Outside of your weapons, you can also upgrade your Suit, Torch, and one other weapon through the use of Cores, another rarer resource that you’ll come across. These will let you increase your inventory slots, resource limits, and health, to name just a few. There’s a lot of customization, and none of it feels superficial, all playing into making your exploration easier or helping in combat. By the end of my adventure, I was nowhere close to maxing out multiple weapons or my Suit as I focused on a few different items.

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You can spend Energy (a currency) to upgrade many aspects of your weapons.

Impactful Sound Design

A special mention needs to be made of just how good the sound design is in Cronos: The New Dawn. The voice acting from the cast is stellar, and the Traveler especially delivers an incredible performance, starting with a robotic, emotionless voice to one of more color as the narrative continues. The sound effects are incredibly impactful; each bullet sounds meaty, the clunky footsteps of the Traveler heavy with purpose, and the various creaks and monstrous outcries all create that fearful tension you need in a survival horror.

The music is fantastic too, hitting at specific moments to create a sense of place and feeling that either invokes dread or hope. It has a typical Sci-Fi feel to it, which eventually becomes the theme of what remains of Nowa Huta, and makes you stand up and listen whenever it begins to play.

After a playthrough in which I explored the majority of the content, I beat the game within 16 hours, the same number that the developers themselves suggest. There are plenty of reasons to come back to the game after beating it, with the way your choices affect key moments and multiple endings to go for.

Still, Cronos is a difficult game, and with there being no difficulty options from the start, many may find it a steep curve they won’t be willing to put the time into. I’d urge those players to stick with it; the game is a delight to play through, and I couldn’t put it down during that time. With environmental storytelling through the roof, a really compelling combat system, and exploration that made me want to see every nook and cranny, Cronos: The New Dawn has become an instant favorite!