Horror beyond time. Cronos: The New Dawn game review

Survival horror as a genre has always balanced between a slow immersion in a nightmare and sudden flashes of horror. Cronos: The New Dawn follows the same path, relying on atmosphere, resource scarcity and a carefully constructed pace. This is a game that feels like the heir to Dead Space and Resident Evil at the same time, but transfers the action to a universe where the past always weighs on a person. In the new project of the Polish Bloober Team, which gave us such masterpieces as Layers of Fear and the remake of Silent Hill 2, the past literally tears reality to pieces. Time rifts lead the player to the 1980s, where he needs to preserve the consciousness of individual people in order to save at least the fragments of this world.

A divided past

The story of Cronos: The New Dawn takes us to the ruins of Krakow, Poland, after a mysterious cataclysm. The main character, the Traveler, awakens from a dream and receives a mission: to find time rifts that will send her back to the 1980s and establish contact with important people for the future of humanity.

We see the past before the disaster gradually – it is revealed drop by drop in notes that come across the world, as well as in trips through time cracks. To this are added audio diaries – a technique that works much better, because it allows you to hear the living voices of people from the past, their emotions and intonations. This helps to immerse yourself and better understand who the characters were before the tragedy. It also does not tie the player to a place and does not destroy the pace of the game, because the recordings can be listened to on the go, exploring the location further. However, there is a problem with the notes: there are too many of them, and some of them look unnatural. For example, it is hard to believe that a person would make his last appeal to God in the form of a written note, and not as a verbal prayer. Such moments break authenticity and seem like a script error, instead of enhancing the atmosphere.

The plot of Cronos: The New Dawn is mostly linear, but from time to time at key moments the player is given the opportunity to make a choice. This may be a decision on what to do with a particular character or what answer to choose in the dialogue next. However, whether these choices really affect the story globally is an open question. After the first playthrough, the consequences seem minimal, and only a second playthrough can show how important and noticeable these changes are.

The story of Cronos: The New Dawn manages to keep the intrigue, but its presentation sometimes feels fragmented. The story of the cataclysm, traveling through the cracks of time and trying to find key people from the past looks exciting, but the story unfolds unevenly. The plot moves mostly in episodes that take place in the past. And this is not surprising, because the human characters are alive before the cataclysm, and in the future only notes and audio diaries are available.

It feels like some ideas are left unfinished, and important scenes get lost in the minutiae. Dialogue choices and fork-in-the-roads add interactivity, but it's not always clear whether they carry any real weight. As a result, the plot feels like a strong concept that's only partially realized, but you still want to understand it to the end, even if the path to that goal doesn't always feel coherent.

Gameplay: Slowness as a mechanic

The combat system is slow and measured – as befits the genre, and very much inspired by Dead Space. The heroine wears a heavy spacesuit, reminiscent of Isaac Clarke's suit: it constrains movement, makes control imprecise and adds complexity in battles with groups of enemies or faster creatures. Despite the obvious limitations, the game directly emphasizes that movement is the key to survival, and at the beginning warns that deaths will be frequent.

The enemies in Cronos: The New Dawn are mostly slow, but fearsome and durable. They require many shots to destroy, and the further the heroine advances, the more dangerous creatures appear. In addition, monsters are able to fuse with the corpses of the fallen and strengthen their armor, which makes the fight even more resource-intensive.

This puts the main mechanic – control of ammunition and inventory – in the first place. Monsters are also dangerous in terms of combat conditions: some of the fights take place in narrow rooms where it is difficult to dodge. The most difficult episodes and deaths occur in battles with bosses or groups of opponents, who actually act as mini-bosses. The first attempt often becomes a "training": the player can remember the stages of the battle, the location of resources and explosive barrels, after which the second attempt will be much easier.

The main gameplay cycle looks like this: find a place of a time rift in post-apocalyptic ruins, get through it to the past – and there find a person whose consciousness needs to be extracted. Additionally, you have to solve puzzles: classic searches for a key for clues with a mandatory return to the right place. Locations are built in such a way as to force the player to run the same routes several times, open shortcuts, re-enter already passed rooms for keys or new items. A classic scheme, known from Resident Evil, as well as the fresh remake of Silent Hill 2 from the same Bloober Team.

Shelters are located in safe zones and serve as strongholds. They contain a shop, a save point, an item storage area, and a flamethrower reloading station. Charges can be replenished by crafting gas cylinders, but they are available for free in the shelters. The disadvantage is that weapons cannot be unloaded before being placed in the shelter - this complicates ammo management, since several units of different weapons of the same type use the same cartridges.

There were also some annoying moments. We are talking about the sometimes awkwardly placed checkpoints: the game often saves progress in not the best places. The checkpoints are sometimes located in such a way that after death you have to collect the same resources several times before the action scenes. This is especially annoying in difficult battles that have to be replayed several times. And this feature contradicts the philosophy that was voiced at the very beginning of the game. In short, it sounds like "death is part of the cycle, get ready to die and learn from your mistakes". That is, the game involves replaying difficult moments, but makes this cycle not very convenient.

Arsenal and leveling

Progression is based on charge (currency) and additional resources. Weapon and costume upgrades are available in stores, and modules and resources for upgrades can be found both in story missions and while exploring locations. A special detail is cats. You can meet these furry creatures around the world, which are not so easy to get to: first you need to solve a small puzzle or find a hidden path. The reward will be the opportunity to pet them, as well as a valuable resource – cores for leveling, new weapons or key items, such as the key to the ammunition warehouse.

The weapons in Cronos: The New Dawn feel substantial and functional. The basic pistol immediately evokes associations with Control. It is also versatile and transforms into other types of weapons with the help of modules. These modules are found during the story, and some special types require performing side activities, that is, for a while, you have to move away from the plot path and find a way to get to a locked area with the desired upgrade.

The main types of weapons are familiar: a pistol, a shotgun, several types of carbines and some unique weapons. Each of them has two firing modes: normal and charged. The second one takes more time, but poses a noticeably greater threat to enemies and makes the combat system really deep, despite the limited arsenal and only four slots for weapons. There is some contradiction here. After all, new types of weapons are just modules for the basic pistol, but for some reason they take up full slots in the inventory. This game convention looks strange, although over time you get used to it.

The perk system stands out separately: they are taken from the essences of people from the past, each of which gives a certain bonus. The essences are transferred along with distorted memories and part of the characters' consciousness, adding a psychological effect to this mechanic and building a kind of bridge to the game's plot. Among the perks are increased damage to enemies in fire, increased damage from hand-to-hand combat, and so on. But only three slots are available, and each time a new perk permanently erases the previous one. This forces you to choose what is more important right now.

Atmosphere and technical details

Cronos: The New Dawn relies on atmosphere. The scenery is designed in the style of Soviet-era Poland: abandoned ruins of the city, suburbs, factories. Notes found in these locations reveal people's lives before the disaster. They can be clues to puzzles, although they are often too obvious and do not cause any particular problems.

The generator mechanic deserves special attention. At one point, you have to turn on several generators to move on. And after a while, the game repeats the same task, which creates a feeling of repetitiveness. The developers even ironize this through the Wanderer's remark about repetitiveness. But this does not save the game - the scenario could have been diversified and, instead of searching for those generators again, a twist could have been made that would have saved the situation. This would have turned the joke into something more and broken the fourth wall, while still keeping the player immersed. And so it looks like a simple delay in timing.

The horror atmosphere is made at a high level. The studio's previous experience is immediately noticeable here. The game does not abuse screamers, but it is not shy about creating moments that are really scary. The project combines various horror techniques: from simple but effective unexpected appearances of monsters to truly creepy episodes of psychological horror. The tension inherent in survival horror is constantly maintained: each time you count the cartridges in front of a new room and wonder if you will have enough resources to make a first aid kit. Even when some moves are predictable, the experience and immersion work flawlessly in the complex.

Cronos: The New Dawn relies heavily on technical presentation, and Bloober Team managed to bring this component to a high level, despite a limited budget. The game masterfully works with light and darkness – mostly darkness. The contrasts between illuminated areas and black corridors create a sense of danger, and every step into the unknown is accompanied by tension. Light is used as an element of gameplay: it suggests the path, hides threats, or makes you doubt whether to enter the next room.

Sound design plays an equally important role – it helps to navigate in space and battles. The appearance of monsters is accompanied by characteristic compositions, and their sounds allow you to determine the location and approach of the enemy well. This gives the player a chance to prepare, even if visibility is limited.

The music in the game is minimalistic but effective. It combines ambient motifs with dark synthetic touches and works to create an atmosphere of psychological horror. At key moments, brighter compositions appear to enhance the drama, but for the most part the music remains an invisible background that presses on the mind and keeps you in suspense.

Despite the low budget, the overall technical implementation looks convincing. Although the game lacks AAA-level visual effects, the work with lighting, shadows, and audio creates exactly what you would expect from a survival horror. Bloober Team once again proves that they prioritize immersion in the game.

Conclusion

Cronos: The New Dawn is not about quick wins or spectacular scenes, but about slow and methodical survival. Bloober Team once again relies on atmosphere and psychological pressure, and this is what defines the player's experience. It is not so much about gunfights or branching plot lines that are important here, but rather the feeling of constant threat, when every bullet and every step could be the last.

The scenery is worth noting: gloomy interiors and courtyards in the style of socialist Poland in themselves evoke unpleasant associations, especially for a Ukrainian player. What in other games might seem like an ordinary background here turns into an additional layer of alienation and anxiety. The unfriendly environment not only intensifies the atmosphere, but also reinforces the feeling that every step in this world is a struggle with the past, which has left behind cold and emptiness.

The game doesn't always avoid repetition and technical inconveniences, but overall it works as a coherent survival horror with its own character. It immerses you in a world where time is crumbling to pieces, and the past appears not as something that can be changed, but as a burden that has to be lived over and over again. Cronos: The New Dawn poses the question not of the correctness of choice, but of its doom: no matter what you do, the past has already happened, and attempts to fix it only expose your own vulnerability to history. This is an experience not for those looking for dynamics, but for those who are ready to go through a gloomy journey through time and feel that the past can be more terrible than any future.