Cronos: The New Dawn Review (PC): A Lonely Apocalypse

Following its success with Silent Hill 2’s remake, Bloober Team now tries its hand at something new, but fairly familiar. Cronos: The New Dawn is a time-traveling survival horror title set in a post-apocalyptic version of Poland, where fleshy abominations and structural anomalies are the only things left standing.

According to Bloober Team, Cronos is a project close to their hearts, being set in 1980s Nowa Huta, a Polish district where many of the team’s members grew up. This in-depth expertise and familiarity with the setting pay off tremendously, as the game’s locations feel like they have been plucked straight from a memory, rich and deeply rooted in history. Cronos is a great example of the expression “write what you know” being put into action, but can familiarity create a masterpiece?

Observing the World

Cronos puts us in the shoes of ND-3576, also known as the Traveler, whose role is to travel back into the past in search of individuals who could alter the timeline. The Traveler’s main goal is to probe the minds of key figures to look for ways in which to stop the Change, a catastrophic disease that turned humanity into diseased fleshy monstrosities. To withstand time travel, the Traveler wears a temporal shell, similar to a slim version of BioShock’s Big Daddy suit. The temporal shell is a striking part of Cronos’ visual identity, but it also fulfills the ludonarrative job of restraining the player’s movement abilities, helping dictate the pacing of combat. Every encounter plays into the main character’s bulkiness, as combat relies on charged shots and careful aiming, as well as luring enemies into traps while positioning yourself against multiple targets.

This methodical approach to combat pays off greatly, as you are constantly tense with the knowledge that running away isn’t much of a viable plan. Having the enemies hide, blend into the scenario, or play dead also forces you to be extra aware of the environment at all times. It’s difficult to think of any games in recent memory that had me examining my surroundings so often, which, weirdly enough, gave me a lot of appreciation for Cronos’ well-crafted locations. This focus on the environment feels like a level designer cheat code to make it so players appreciate their surroundings rather than just rushing through it.

Doing What Works

Bloober Team doesn’t seem to play coy about what inspires them, as Cronos pulls a lot from established survival horror franchises. One of the more obvious comparisons we can make is to Dead Space, as the main character wears a big bulky suit, explores levels by manipulating the environment, and fights fleshy abominations with distended limbs, which is about as Dead Space as you can get without being an outright sequel. Looking closer, we can also spot some of modern Resident Evil’s DNA, like the minimalistic UI, inventory management, puzzle design, and boss fights in cramped spaces. The main difference between Cronos and the titles that it takes inspiration from, however, is how it takes those pieces and creates something mechanically similar but with its own unique identity, ending up much larger than the sum of its parts.

One thing to note is that Cronos is very light on puzzles, focusing almost entirely on combat and exploitation. Most of the legwork the player does pertains to finding keys or access codes to doors, which are always very straightforward and don’t require much thinking, making it a reasonably linear experience. There’s still some challenge in figuring out what the way forward is, requiring a good sense of direction and map awareness, but those who have set expectations for the survival horror genre will definitely be disappointed by the lack of brain teasers, as this is more of a rip and tear sort of game.

Dynamic Encounters

Cronos’ main enemies are the Orphans, previously diseased humans now mutated into fleshy creatures who create nests of organic material. The Orphans come in multiple sizes and types, sometimes spitting acid or being covered in hardened plates that deflect bullets, but they all have one shared ability: merging. If left unchecked, an Orphan can merge with nearby corpses and gain multiple special mutations, functionally becoming a miniboss who snowballs your progress against you. This creates a very dynamic combat system where you are constantly forced to keep track of the more dangerous enemy types, using your limited flamethrower ammo to burn the more dangerous bodies before they cause further mutations. Fire is an overall precious resource that needs to be carefully managed, as it’s also one of the very few things that will stun the Orphans long enough to give you a breather during combat.

Cronos’ encounters constantly require the player to act fast and make tough decisions, since hesitating to use your items could put you in a much worse situation. Fire also has its uses outside of combat, being used to burn down barriers that lead to rooms filled with ammo and items, making it a difficult resource to let go of even outside of combat.
A survival horror game lives and dies by its weapons, and I’m thankfully glad to report that Cronos’ weapons feel as heavy as its protagonist, providing excellent visual and auditory feedback while shredding through enemies. The game’s starting handgun, confusingly-named sword, puts in enough work to be relevant from beginning to end thanks to its charged shot mechanic, which when fully upgraded, bullies bosses and elite enemies. Unfortunately, there are no dismemberment mechanics or cutting weapons in general, which feels like a missed opportunity considering the game’s inspirations.

A Disposable Existence

Survival horror is a genre used to tell deeply personal stories, usually pertaining to the rescue of a loved one or a desperate need for survival, but Cronos does its best to show that the Travelers are not bigger than their missions; they might have a very important job, but are not important themselves. This is best exemplified by how the game starts, with the main character being woken up from an induced sleep only to be immediately given orders on how to continue a failed mission. This no-frills introduction serves to show that we are simply another body to be thrown at a problem, and in the very likely event that we fail, a replacement is lined up and ready to continue where we left off. The expression “Such is our calling” comes up often as a way to show that the Travelers are duty-bound to their cause in an almost religious manner. This vaguely religious symbolism is also present in the process of activating a new Traveler, which is called a Lazarus protocol.

Cronos’ plot is filled with themes of identity, as the game’s depersonalized and faceless protagonist extracts each target’s essence, the very thing that makes them unique, condemning them to an unnatural existence all for the sake of answers. The conversations we have inside of the phylactery, where the essences are held, drip with anger and regret, both tormenting and humanizing the almost robotic Traveler.

Spooky Moments

Cronos is definitely on the action side of things as far as survival horror goes, especially since the player is more than well-equipped to handle most situations, but that doesn’t mean saving the world is a walk in the park. Most encounters are one-sided, as the game constantly sets up ambushes by having enemies crawling their way out of flesh piles, breaking through doors, or by having unassuming corpses come back to life. Difficult combat is a sure-fire way to keep your audience engaged and scared, and even as someone who doesn’t react to horror that much, I have to admit that Cronos made me jump more than a few times thanks to some crafty enemy placement.

Some of the game’s horror elements are ramped up as you extract essence and fill up your phylactery, carrying the memories of your targets in the past. Walking around with a phylactery full of essence gives the player different passive buffs, like increased headshot damage and faster movement speed when aiming, but also results in jumpscares, as the Traveler becomes haunted by violent memories of their target’s lives. These jumpscares unfortunately don’t feel as earned or effective as the tense moments that the game creates through its atmosphere and enemy ambushes, ending up more annoying and disruptive than actually scary. These half-baked attempts at horror start to get really frequent during the game’s second half, genuinely hurting what would be an overall fantastic horror experience.

The Almighty Unreal Engine 5

On the PC side of things, Cronos boasts reasonably modern requirements, listing an Intel Core i7-10700K CPU and RTX 3080 GPU as recommended hardware, which feels understandable considering the game is quite a looker. Despite being an Unreal Engine 5 title, performance is incredibly smooth for the most part, with no lighting issues or stutters, although some areas are prone to frame drops, usually the ones that are filled to the brim with enemies and organic goop.

The PC version has a great amount of customization options, including uncapped framerates, support for ultrawide resolutions, frame generation, a lengthy list of advanced settings, and pretty much everything else you would expect from a competent modern release. Cronos serves as a pretty decent benchmark for new hardware, as well as a solid candidate for one of the better-optimized Unreal Engine 5 games released this year.

Final Verdict

From beginning to end, Cronos manages to be a highly engaging and immersive survival horror experience, featuring tough combat encounters, tense exploration sequences, and an overall fantastic plot. It goes down incredibly easy with its 16-hour runtime, making a graceful exit before overstaying its welcome. For those who do want more, though, there are some post-game unlockables like New Game+ and armor skins, as well as multiple endings and different rankings to achieve.

It becomes increasingly apparent as you play through it that Cronos is a passion project, one of those titles that a studio finally manages to develop after hitting it big with a commercially successful release. Following something like Silent Hill 2 with an entirely new horror IP takes a lot of confidence, but that bold move has certainly paid off, as Bloober Team’s vision and execution are tremendously impressive.

Cronos: The New Dawn was reviewed on PC with a code provided by Bloober Team. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

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