"Cronos: The New Dawn" tested: a terrifying, almost perfect horror masterpiece
3/9/2025
Translation: machine translated
Pictures: Domagoj Belancic
"Cronos: The New Dawn" is oppressive, unpleasant and terrifying. In other words, everything a horror game should be. It even borders on perfection - even if some design decisions will cause controversy among horror fans.
The Polish developer studio Bloober Team was long regarded as an underdog among fans of the horror genre. Their games, such as «Layers of Fear» or «The Medium», were ambitious but failed to fully convince either the specialised press or the gaming community. With the remake of «Silent Hill 2», the surprising liberating blow came last year. The remake of the classic game received highest ratings from critics and was hailed as a masterpiece by fans.
After the successful remake, «Cronos: The New Dawn» is back with its own project. Can the studio manage to produce a survival horror hit without a template?
The answer is: yes. And how the hell!
The story asks more questions than it answers
The story of the game is deliberately vague. I take on the role of a nameless female character in a menacing-looking, metallic diving suit. She speaks in a robotic voice. Kind of creepy.
I reveal more about the protagonist through cryptic messages. I learn that I am a «traveller» who is roaming a post-apocalyptic wasteland on behalf of the mysterious «collective». It is teeming with hideously disfigured creatures that remotely resemble humans. The game reveals to me that this wasteland used to be Poland before it was ravaged by a devastating epidemic.
Source: Bloober Team
In this desolate world, there are time rifts through which I have to step in order to travel back in time - to Poland in the 1980s, to be precise. My mission is to find important people there who can prevent the apocalypse. But my mission is not to save these people - on the contrary. I have to kill them and digitise their souls so that I can analyse them in the present. That escalated quickly.
In the beginning, I carry out my mission for the «collective» dutifully. But after the first harvested soul at the latest, I think to myself: Wait a minute. Objectively speaking, what I'm doing sounds like a classic bad guy act. Am I the bad guy in this game? And who or what is this «collective» anyway?!
Bloober Team does not provide clear answers to my questions. On the contrary - as soon as one question is answered, dozens more are raised. I love this kind of storytelling. The game trusts me to think for myself and doesn't hand me anything on a silver platter.
Like an addict, I search the levels for breadcrumbs that give me more information. Notes, newspaper cuttings, sound recordings. I put the pieces of the puzzle together myself and try to understand how the mysterious epidemic, the apocalypse and «the collective» are connected.
Days after watching the end credits, I still think about the interwoven and symbolic story. What's more, the traveller and the ugly monsters haunt my dreams. In short - the game won't let me go.
Timing is everything
The combat system of «Cronos: The New Dawn» is deliberately kept simple. My traveller is armed with several futuristic guns. Each of them has a special mechanism that I activate by pressing and holding the R2 trigger. For example, my pistol can be recharged to inflict even more damage. Later on, I also find a machine gun that fires a barrage of homing bullets when the trigger is held down. Timing is crucial with all weapons - if I load a shot too late or reload a weapon too late, I will be taken by surprise by the monsters.
The traveller moves slowly and sluggishly through the levels. Even in hectic combat situations, the character can't pick up much speed. This is not a point of criticism - the controls feel precise and satisfying. What's more, a metallic diving suit is simply heavy.
The only problem is that despite its powerful appearance, the suit can't take much punishment. A few enemy attacks are usually enough to kill me. I search in vain for special abilities in battle, such as jumps or dodges - a point that was criticised in some previews of the game.
I can't understand this criticism. The limited moveset of the travellers contributes significantly to the survival horror atmosphere. I don't want an acrobatic character that elegantly dodges attacks and launches devastating counterattacks. Less is sometimes more in the horror genre.
Source: Bloober Team
During the course of the adventure, I can equip my weapons and armour with valuable upgrades. I can also equip various perks. These give me stronger melee attacks, for example, or let me find more resources.
Especially macabre: The perks are the aforementioned human souls that I harvest «» and digitise. If I delete a soul from my inventory, I can hear it die.
Okay, I think I'm definitely not one of «the good guys».
Body horror at its finest
The monsters, with their different sizes, attack patterns and special abilities, provide playful variety during the 15-hour adventure. Some creatures attack me on two legs, others crawl along walls like spiders and some spit dangerous acid from a distance. Cool, but I would have liked a bit more visual variety.
The lack of visual variation is compensated for by an ingenious game mechanic. Creatures that are still alive can fuse with opponents that have already been killed. This makes them bigger, stronger and gives them additional armour. This exciting twist ensures that even defeated enemies still pose a threat to me. Every monster I kill is potential fodder for the next monster that attacks me.
The only way to completely eliminate the corpses is to burn them. Easier said than done: resources for crafting secondary weapons such as fire grenades are extremely rare in the labyrinthine levels of «Cronos: The New Dawn».
Scarcity of resources
The game takes the «Survival» in «Survival Horror» very seriously. Ammunition for my guns is just as scarce as raw materials for the production of medicine. Every shot is valuable, every medkit worth its weight in gold. I panically search every new room for items.
My inventory is extremely limited. I can only carry a few items and resources at a time. Everything is in competition with each other. Would I rather carry one more gun or save an inventory slot for a quest item that I need to transport? Do I use the resources I find to make ammunition or would I rather use them to mix medicine?
Admittedly, inventory management can be a little tiring at times. For me, however, the scarce resources and limited inventory space further emphasise the oppressive horror experience.
Source: Bloober Team
Ingenious level design with strict limits
«Cronos: The New Dawn» leads me along its tightly orchestrated narrative through mostly narrow and convoluted game areas. The ingeniously designed levels resemble labyrinths that wind their way through the post-apocalyptic world like intestines. I search in vain for a map. The fear of getting lost adds to the horror atmosphere. I make my way through corridors overgrown with disgusting biomass and keep finding shortcuts or well-hidden secret rooms.
Despite the nested level design, «Cronos» is a very linear gaming experience overall. I find arbitrary level boundaries everywhere, such as crates or chairs stacked too high, which restrict my radius of movement. This sometimes seems a little ridiculous (why can't my mighty traveller jump over this desk?) but has the advantage that the pacing is almost perfect due to the strict limits.
I never linger too long in one environment or game situation. Sweaty action scenes alternate with quieter story moments or clever puzzle interludes. In the latter, for example, I manipulate time anomalies to rewind certain objects «» that are blocking my path. The sections in which I am travelling with my anti-gravity shoes are also particularly successful. Suddenly I'm running upside down through the levels or floating through the air to the next gravity point. Again and again I put the controller down briefly to pause: «Fuck, this is brilliant».
Eastern bloc brutalism, retro-futurism and technical problems
The visual presentation of the game is a stunner. The art style combines retro-futuristic elements from the «collective» and the brutalist architecture from Poland's communist past to create a unique overall package.
It feels wonderfully fresh and unspent to wander through socialist apartment blocks and brutalist steel factories in a horror game. Some of the buildings also remind me of my home town of Zagreb in Croatia, which is also characterised by similar architecture. I discover Polish graffiti on the walls, some of which I can decipher with my knowledge of Croatian. I would love to see more games with unique settings whose story is not set in the USA or Japan.
Source: Bloober Team
And the music... oh my god, the music. Menacing, booming sounds emphasise the omnipresent danger that lurks in the dark corners of the game world. In action-packed moments, the soundscape transforms into a symbiosis of synth sounds à la «Stranger Things» and ghostly choir chants. Goosebumps.
It's a shame that the technology can't always keep up with the game's ambitions. The cutscenes, in which «real» people can be seen, don't feel as smooth as the rest of the game with abrupt animations and stiff faces. The performance is also not beyond reproach. I play the game on a PS5 Pro in performance mode - in hectic battles and switching between rooms, I can feel stutters. Some textures load too late or look blurred. And once I even had to load an old save game because I got stuck in a room - Bloober is aware of the problem and promises to eradicate such bugs.
On the whole, these technical inconsistencies are fortunately only a side note in a unique horror masterpiece.
«Cronos: The New Dawn» is available from 5 September for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2 and PC. The game was provided to me for testing purposes by Bandai Namco for the PS5 (Pro).
In a nutshell
"Cronos: The New Dawn" is a unique horror masterpiece that makes you think
"Cronos: The New Dawn" convinces with a clever story and an unused setting between retro-futurism, brutalism and sci-fi horror. The simple and slow combat system is a matter of taste. If you get involved, you can expect nerve-wracking battles. Monsters that fuse with previously defeated opponents add an exciting twist to the encounters.
Although the ingenious level design is very linear, it impresses with its almost perfect pacing, in which action, story and puzzles constantly alternate. The scarce resources ensure constant tension, which is accompanied by an excellent synth-electro soundtrack. In short - "Cronos: The New Dawn" is one of the best horror games I have ever played.
Pro
- Unique setting and exciting story
- Linear but ingenious level design with perfect pacing
- Simple but effective combat system with fusing opponents
Contra
- some technical flaws
Header image: Bloober Team
Domagoj Belancic
Senior Editor
Domagoj.Belancic@digitecgalaxus.chMy love of video games was unleashed at the tender age of five by the original Gameboy. Over the years, it's grown in leaps and bounds.
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