Cronos: The New Dawn Review - Bloober Team Dawns A New Era

Cronos: The New Dawn is a brand-new horror from Bloober Team, the studio that brought us the critically acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake.

Following the Silent Hill 2 remake, expectations are now sky high, and with its brand new survival horror IP, Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team has continued with its upward trajectory and has reminded me why I’ve loved the survival horror genre for decades.

Cronos is set in a dystopian Poland, sometime in the 1980s, following a cataclysmic event. As the “Traveller”, you’re thrown into an alternative dimension-esque world with little knowledge of exactly where you are. All you know for sure is that you’re on a mission to unravel its mystery.

As you explore its eerie, retro sci-fi world, you will discover remnants of the past, providing clues of how this hell on earth came to be. In this world, there are horrific, mutated creatures that may be a result of experiments gone wrong and a mass government cover-up. Standard survival horror malarkey.

You’re treated to a few cut-scenes here and there, but despite the lack of obvious story beats, the world that Bloober Team has created is soaked in atmosphere and unravels its mystery little by little, encouraging you to push on to learn more.

Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team

Cronos begins at a slow pace, giving you a perfect opportunity to get a feel of this hellish world. You’ll explore derelict buildings, reading documents by those who once resided there, searching for keys to backtrack to a previously encountered locked door or solving a puzzle that helps you progress the story. The classic survival horror formulas that we know and love.

This is a challenging horror game, and at some points, it was nearly rage-inducing. Sometimes it felt like I’d been unfairly swarmed by enemies in very confined spaces, with little ammo to defend myself and resources to craft health items.

Then it dawned on me (no pun intended) that Bloober was putting the survival back into survival horror. Scarce ammo, surviving with barely a snippet of health and the feeling of being lost in haunting locations. This is what I’ve always loved about the genre. I often found myself constantly restarting checkpoints to attempt a new strategy for an area that was giving me more trouble than usual, and eventually, I came to love this aspect of the game.

Spraying away whatever bullets you have in your inventory will not bode well. You’ll need to hit enemies with precise shots, so no bullet goes wasted. Sometimes you might take down an enemy with ease, and sometimes, an area may pose such a threat that running away might be the best course of action.

Speaking of the enemies, these things are horrid; varying in size, strength and speed. Each keeps you on your toes. In most cases, when you down an enemy, that simply will not do. Perhaps inspired by Dead Space, nothing in Cronos: The New Dawn truly remains dead.

Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team

Unlike Dead Space, where a Necromorph will revive an enemy, in Cronos, living enemies will use dead enemies to become stronger and harder to kill. This adds an extra layer of urgency, not only worrying about the immediate enemy posing a threat, but how the dead enemy might evolve a threat right there in the moment or later when you backtrack.

You can burn dead enemies using ‘Torch Fuel’ cannisters, so that they cannot be consumed by the living (if living is the right word), but with limited firepower to dispose of those enemies, it becomes a strategic conundrum of when and where to use them. Plus, you have the added dilemma that ‘Torch Fuel’ can be used to access sealed areas, which often lead to precious resources.

To help you contend with the brutal enemies of the game, the Traveller has a few weapons at her disposal: your typical hand cannon, shotgun and machine gun-inspired firearms. And just like your armour, each of the weapons can be upgraded with resources you’ve gathered.

However, with resources not only being scarce, you’ll also need plenty to fully upgrade what you want. This, in turn, encourages multiple playthroughs, which is quite handy with Cronos: The New Dawn having a New Game Plus, as well as plenty of secrets to discover.

Similar to Resident Evil games of yesteryear, you’ll only be able to carry a limited amount of items. A factor that old-school survival horror fans will no doubt appreciate.

Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team

Upgrading armour storage capacity is a must, but you’ll often find yourself in conflict over whether to upgrade armour durability and resource capacity to make your weapons more effective. You can also store items in your stash box, found in one of the many save havens.

I’d be remiss if I never mentioned that fantastic soundtrack and audio of Cronos: The New Dawn. The eerie groans of abominations and the creeks of the environment gave me vibes of Dead Space’s audio design, and its soundtrack is a spine-tingling blend of Silent Hill and Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, Blade Runner.

Cronos: The New Dawn is no walk in the park, and it will not hold your hand, and that’s exactly how survival horror games should be. This is the best original IP from Bloober Team to date, and if this is a sign of things to come, aside from the upcoming Silent Hill remake, I can’t wait to see what new terrifying delights the studio has in store for us next. Despite some occasional stuttering framerates, this is Bloober Team’s best original work yet, and Cronos: The New Dawn may go down as the best horror game this year.

Pros: Solid firearm combat, soaked in atmosphere, excellent audio design

Cons: Difficulty spikes may frustrate some, some stuttering framerates

For fans of: Dead Space, Silent Hill

8/10: Excellent

Cronos: The New Dawn will be released on 5 September 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5 (version reviewed), Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.