Review
Played on: Xbox Series X
Released: 2025
Polish developer Bloober Team are on fire when it comes to building up experience on horror titles; from the average Layers of Fear, review here, to the fantastic The Medium, review here and on to the excellent remake of Silent Hill 2, review here. Last year saw the release of a brand-new survival horror release for the team; Cronos the New Dawn.
This is survival horror with a difference and a serious sting at the end of its tail. Visually set in an 80s Poland, surrounded by heavy, brutalist architecture combined with hardcore survival horror gameplay. From its chilling darkness to its ruthless, tough enemies, it's constant uphill battle from beginning to end.
With an easier difficulty scheduled for this year, perhaps defeating its very purpose, is this a survival horror to add to your collection? While the Silent Hill 2 remake was a masterpiece, and we're all excited about their Silent Hill 1 remake in development, it's always interesting to see a new lore and setting!
Let's take a closer look!
If hard mode in Resident Evil had its own game, it would be Cronos. The difficulty is not even introduced gradually; you're thrown into a small room from the first, vicious enemy encounter. Even this organically, horrifying human form will give you a beating unless you take it down by most likely panicking and using lots of ammo or taking a deep breath and power shot it precisely in the head. I was almost left a bit shocked, even with years of survival horror experience behind me.
Firing your weapon is about weighing up damage and ammo. Tap the fire button quickly and your first gun fires like a normal pistol. Hold it to power it up, on the other hand, and every single bullet can dish out massive amounts of damage. Do you have time for power up shot, or do you need to quickly get out of a pickle and fire fast? It's about keeping at your toes, not getting cornered and tuning yourself into a slower combat style.
You character, a female known only as The Traveler, wears a heavy armour which, reminds of an antique diving suit. Suffice to say, she moves heavy and slow in it, and with scarce amounts of bullets, this is about becoming good at making each shot count. At first, it's overwhelming and you fire away lots of bullets unnecessary, then you begin taking a deep breath, even in sudden, abrupt and scared moments, to careful align your sights and fire for the creature weak parts with powered up shots.
There's even two buttons for hitting or stomping, taken right out of Dead Space, but until I got a permanent boost I found these moves a bit weak. They're useful for breaking crates with resources, but could've pushed the enemies more away. The boosts are called essences and are found in the bodies of dead time travellers, you can only have three equipped at a time, grating your boosts to energy found, damage dealt with melee or extra headshot hit points for intance.
Careful item, ammo and health management is must, at all times. Sure, there are some periods of time where you find yourself well stocked up on ammo types, health packs and maybe a couple of fire grenades, but don't let that fool you. Faster than you know it you're back to scraping through on low health and few bullets again. Scavenging every cupboard, drawer and box is a clever way of keeping your chances of survival a little higher.
There's an upgrade system divided in two currencies; energy, which can be found while scavenging in fairly large numbers, and upgrade cores which are very rare. Energy is used to upgrade all the various guns, while cores can be used to upgrade your suit and grenades.
It's a grind to upgrade, but within all this toughness lies Cronos strong side: it's a game that greatly rewards you for battling it out in terms of gameplay. Each upgrade can be felt as an improvement, each well aimed shot helps you conserve ammo and clever ways of moving about when trapped with enemies to avoid damage leaves you with more health packs.
This is a gameplay put in the front seat; you need to get better and as you do so it pays off! It's a great sensation in contrast to modern titles with tons of checkpoints, easy difficulties and rich on resources.
With an 80s, communism inspired, Polish brutalism design to buildings and design, Cronos has a unique style. Standing out the most is the hospital and church, with the hospital reminding me of a Silent Hill setting and the church just being extremely ominous with its horrifying catacombs beneath.
It's perhaps leans a little too far on the depressing side at times; there's very few relaxing moments with cozy environments, nor do we ever see the face of the protagonist. Yet it's a deliberate choice and the insight to a society and era less familiar to us grown up the west during the Soviet era. It's a unique view of Poland from this time.
There's an unsettling vibe to never knowing the face of the main character, you're simply put in her shoes waking up in capsule at the very beginning. Here you're presented a psychological questionnaire before heading out in a world fallen completely apart by a catastrophe. On the surface it looks the aftermath of a nuclear war, but this isn't what the game is about.
Cronos is a time travel story; your goal is to find out the course of a deadly virus which ended humanity. How and where it occurred and your ultimate goal is to alter the course of time by pulling the essence from key people close to the incident that the apocalypse began with.
I played in performance mode on my Xbox Series X, which holds up well considering the heavy duty of the Unreal Engine 5. Performance and quality mode are identical in terms of detail outside the 30 vs 60 framerate and the higher resolution in quality mode. I couldn't tell much difference between the two other than the higher framerate which results in smoother and more responsive control, especially for a shooter like this. It's sadly not a rock solid 60fps though, dropping in hectic moments or large areas, but it's nothing too bad. I did play on a VRR TV and may not have noticed it so much.
Visually it's detailed, filled with dense particles, smoke and visuals effects, but it's not a colourful experience. There's a clear dark and moody design which is deliberate, consisting largely of remote, Soviet styled, concrete buildings. The colour scheme is mostly a cold blue hue with small glimpses of warm, orange light sources breaking the tension. There's not much variation, with a clear visual style of cold blues and warm spots of orange lighting throughout.
Its beauty lies in the calm interiors or neon lights braking up the hostile coldness of the nightmare apocalyptic world you're exploring. While it doesn't have the variety of Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake depicts, it's graphically on the same level sharing typical horror environments like a hospital. In general, these two titles share contained, linear designed environments; needed to make its horror intense and claustrophobic. Cronos, however, leans deeper into a dystopian and post-apocalyptic world without much variety outside this style.
That said, there's lots of detail in the environments with burnt out cars scattered about, dust blowing across sandy grounds, snow falling past streetlamps, pulsating range organic growth covering dark cellars and lots of interior indoors detail of homes abandoned. They're intense and creepy to explore, especially the times you're indoors and there's little places to escape or move about!
Effects like moving lighting, fog, dust, sand, snow, sparks and flames, in addition to enemies being satisfyingly ripped apart by your guns, compliment an atmospheric visual package. Unreal Engine 5 showing a strong side to how it handles visuals effects and intricate detail.
Overall, an enjoyable playthrough, with a complex time travel story woven in. While it didn't quite blow me away as much as I'd hoped, with the story passing over my head with confusion and lacking memorable moments. The ending feels stalled for what I felt was typical and inevitable end to such a time travel.
That said, the gameplay and survival horror elements keeping me engaged and on my toes throughout its playtime! I opted for a second playthrough in new game plus, allowing me to have more freedom with resources and continue upgrading my suit and weapons and it justified my opinion of it's solid gameplay. Right up there with games like Dead Space.
While it has a unique atmosphere and visual impact of a Cold War era Poland, it perhaps doesn't vary enough outside of this style. It all blends into a lot of similar and oversued areas like empty factories, concrete cellars and warehouses come to mind. It could also have eased up on the grindy upgrades.
That said, I left with what I wanted to see in a survival horror. It really brings satisfaction to the gameplay by requiring precision and careful resource management. Rewarding the player when they get it right and surviving deeper into its dark world. If you liked Bloober Team's work with The Medium and Silent Hill 2 or Electronic Arts' Dead Space, especially if you're into playing modern Resident Evil's on a challenging difficulty, go check Cronos out!
