Gamers who love horror and are looking for something original to play are in luck. The folks at Bloober Team, who most recently made the much-acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake, are back. This time though, they have an original, mind-bending, survival/horror game for us in the form of Cronos: The New Dawn. Like some of the best horror, it blends together with science fiction to create something both haunting and fascinating. It’s rather unique, to say the least.
I recently had the very good fortune of getting a hands-on preview of Cronos during an event in Krakow, Poland in the town that the game was based on. Aside from getting a tour of the steelworks at Nowa Huta that inspired the twisted world players will experience in the game, I also was treated to a couple of hours with the game itself, in addition to speaking with some of the folks who made it possible. Below, I have a breakdown of some of the biggest things players will want to know about it before diving into the New Dawn for themselves. Let’s go ahead and dive in.
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Cronos: The New Dawn - The basics
Cronos: The New Dawn will be available this fall on console and PC. Players can get it on PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store, while the game will also be available on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PlayStation 5. There is no word on a Nintendo Switch 2 release at this time but it’s certainly something that could be ported over at a later date. Without getting into the specifics, very basically, it is a survival/horror game from the people that brought you the Silent Hill 2 remake, Observer, The Medium and Blair Witch, among others. The core game’s play time is expected to be over/under 16 hours, but that obviously will fluctuate depending on one’s ability, desire to explore, etc.
Here’s what Cronos: The New Dawn is about
The game is set in a grim world where Eastern European brutalism meets retro-futurist technology. You will play as a Traveler tasked with scouring the wastelands of the future in search of time rifts that will bring you back in time to Poland circa the 1980s.
Players will encounter a wasteland of a future brought on by a cataclysmic event known only as “the Change.” It shattered the world leaving behind horrific abominations that will need to be dealt with. You must journey to the ruins of the New Dawn in search of your missing predecessor to finish what they started, heading off on a dangerous journey through time.
It’s a hard game! Strategy is key
One of the most striking and most important things about Cronos: The New Dawn is that it’s not exactly easy. In many ways, it’s outright difficult. This isn’t some sci-fi shooter where one can pick up a machine gun and just start blasting monsters away. It’s closer to the earlier Resident Evil games where resources are scarce and planning is needed. The game also doesn’t hold your hand. It throws you in the deep end, leaving players to figure it out – or die.
Without spoiling too much, you’ll encounter creatures quickly and they’ll need to be killed. You’ll have a gun to do just that, but ammo is scarce, so be mindful. The bigger issue is that enemies, once killed, can be absorbed by living creatures, creating bigger, stronger, peskier threats. As a result, fallen enemies will need to be dealt with. I won’t spoil the how of it all, but it involves fire. Burn away, Travelers!
It’s a game of limited resources and one that requires planning. It’s not a run-and-gun thing. It’s more Alien: Isolation than Halo, but it’s also not really like either of those things. It’s a cocktail of things, with Dead Space also being an obvious influence. From a player perspective though, it’s really all about planning. One has to think critically and think ahead or it gets frustratingly difficult in a hurry.
“It shouldn’t be easy but simple, yes, “Shamil Yanbukhtin, the game’s lead combat designer, tells Fango of the gameplay. “That was the goal. The gameplay should be simple for the player. Instantly be hooked on what he or she is doing, but since we were aiming for the risk and reward philosophy of game design, any player’s mistake should get punished hard.”
The team are fans of “hardcore” games, so that’s something to consider. It’s intuitive to play but that doesn’t mean the game itself is easy. Those looking for something casual may want to look elsewhere. Those okay with a challenge? Step right up.
It’s based on a real place in Poland
As mentioned up top, Cronos: The New Dawn is a game that is very much a work of fiction, telling a dark, alternate history where a cataclysmic event doomed the world in the ‘80s. However, it is inspired by a very real place, namely the district of Nowa Huta in Krakow. Though not a well-known place globally, it is a very important part of Poland’s history, coming together in the post-WWII era as the brainchild of the country’s Socialist government.
The whole thing was largely centered around a steelworks factory, which employed many residents of the town. At its peak, tens of thousands of people worked and lived there. Huta actually means “foundry,” which speaks volumes about what its creators had in mind. The game is largely based on the steelworks specifically, but Nowa Huta is roughly 25 square miles in total.
“It will be something strange and different to put a sci-fi character inside of it,” said Wojciech Piejko, the game’s co-director. “We can use Nowa Huta, the district and the steelworks. That it’s made as a separate city in the past, it’s like some kind of utopia and great Brutalistic architecture, we can go even further than only housing projects.”
It’s the biggest original game Bloober Team has ever made
Bloober Team has tackled increasingly bigger projects in the past, taking a big step up with Silent Hill 2. But that was a remake. Here? They’re building something brand new from the top down. So for those who have played the company’s games before, understand that this is a bigger undertaking.
“It’s the biggest game we’ve ever made,” Piejko said. “We love what we did in The Medium, it was a different game. Several layers of fear. But we love survival/horror and at the right moment we all say to each other, ‘Hey let’s go into that direction.’ We can hire better specialists, go bigger and create the game of our dreams. This is the game we all want to play.”
To craft the game, the team started with two different, original ideas, which were then merged into one, resulting in Cronos. The team was inspired by several horror classics from other mediums, including John Carpenter’s The Thing, Ridley Scott’s Alien, as well as other survival/horror games like Resident Evil. The ‘80s influences are strong, but it’s the “weird cousin of the ‘80s,” according to Jacek Zieba, the game’s other co-director.
So don’t go into it expecting a bunch of Stranger Things style ‘80s nostalgia. This is a very Polish game, which only adds to the original flavor. Elements of it feel familiar but it is undoubtedly its own fresh, bizarre, scary experience.
Cronos: The New Dawn is set to arrive this fall. For more, get a glimpse at Konami’s mysterious Silent Hill F.
