{"id":10306,"date":"2025-07-28T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/cronos-the-new-dawn-hands-on-preview\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T13:00:00","slug":"cronos-the-new-dawn-hands-on-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextlevelnews.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/07\/28\/cronos-the-new-dawn-hands-on-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Cronos: The New Dawn Hands-On Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Due to decades of popularity, there\u2019s always going to be new challengers stepping up to try and take the survival horror crown. Most fail, but when Bloober Team \u2013 fresh off the overwhelming success of their Silent Hill 2 remake \u2013 steps up with an original effort, you take notice. That\u2019s why I was eager to try out Cronos: The New Dawn. But does this rusty sci-fi, set in a futuristic Eastern European dystopia, have what it takes to make its own mark, or does it just merge into the pack? After playing the first two hours, the signs are there that Bloober Team could have a new survival horror hit on its hands, even if I do have some slight reservations.\n<\/p>\n

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Cronos sees Bloober Team (briefly) stepping away from the established lore of Silent Hill to tell an original story, one set in a harsh, futuristic hellhole that was once called Poland. Taking inspiration from real locations, it tells the story of a character known as a \u201cTraveller\u201d, who explores this fallen world and time-travels into different eras on a mission to extract human souls from long-lost important people. It\u2019s all suitably other-worldly and oppressive, complete with a sky coloured a constant moody hue and pockets of time oddities that defy the laws of nature. It\u2019s a horrible place to be, but despite its nightmarish visuals, it\u2019s still built on the foundation of a once-thriving city with European architecture. So much like Silent Hill 2, despite the horrors that lurk in the fog, significant sections like housing blocks and flower shops still feel strangely familiar to explore, unlike, say, the phallic-obsessed hallways of something like Scorn.<\/p>\n

This sense of familiarity, despite the unique horror aesthetics, is an approach that permeates all throughout Cronos, right down to the gameplay. It feels like its genre peers, perhaps at times to a fault. The weight of the Traveller, the mantling animations, squeezing through gaps, reading notes, juggling inventory slots, safe rooms \u2013 it\u2019s all second nature for anyone even just a little experienced in the genre. It feels great and immediately hits a quality bar that you\u2019d expect, but at first I couldn\u2019t help but be a little concerned that this is just essentially the same game I\u2019ve played 20 times already with a fresh coat of paint. Fortunately, it eventually became apparent that Cronos comes with a distinct enough spin on ranged combat, demonstrating that there\u2019s more to the game than just a unique-looking, by-the-numbers survival horror. <\/p>\n

Enemy encounters are no longer run-and-gun, but rather a game of deliberate tactics.<\/section>\n\n

The bulk of enemies in Cronos are organic, slimy tendril monstrosities called Orphans. They\u2019re not exactly unique in terms of visual design, but Cronos offers a fresh take on how you manage your foes. Like Resident Evil\u2019s Crimson Heads, Orphan corpses need to be dealt with. Unlike<\/em> Crimson Heads, Orphans don\u2019t re-animate, but rather become available biomass for other Orphans to merge with, turning a regular foe into a suped-up beast. You only need to witness this process once to quickly learn how valuable it is to destroy their remains. With this mindset, the familiar survival horror rhythm that Cronos lures you into is completely altered. Enemy encounters are no longer run-and-gun, but rather a game of deliberate tactics. You need to make sure you don\u2019t kill an enemy while it\u2019s close to another that\u2019s currently engaging you, otherwise you\u2019ll quickly find yourself in even more trouble. And you\u2019ll need to do that while also trying to crowd control in the extremely tight combat spaces. Each battle presents a constant question about where and when you fire your shots. <\/p>\n

Much like Silent Hill 2, most of the combat is way more intimate than ranged, despite the presence of firearms. The Traveller comes equipped with a morphing handgun, not dissimilar to the service weapon in Remedy\u2019s classic, Control, although upgrades (like the shotgun module called \u2018The Hammer\u2019) are mechanical objects that you can collect and attach. Once applied, these upgrades allow the firearm to easily morph in the form of your choosing.<\/p>\n

Ammo, though, is scarce, and in this regard, Cronos is much more traditional horror than action horror. Once again, if you dive in expecting to mow down fodder like you\u2019re playing Resident Evil 4, then expect to have a bad time. Enemies are tough, and merged enemies are significantly tougher. So perhaps more than ever, ammo is extremely precious and \u2013 at least from what I played \u2013 every shot truly does count. Like Dead Space\u2019s Isaac Clarke, The Traveller can also stomp and swing a punch, but across my two-hour session, these moves felt largely like flourishes rather than useful combat techniques.<\/p>\n

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So, with a scarce amount of ammo and the possibility that even early enemies can quickly evolve into unstoppable beasts, you need to quickly learn a new playstyle that\u2019s distinct from other survival horror games. From what I saw, the key to combat success in Cronos is a systematic approach utilising two extremely valuable abilities: charge and burn.<\/p>\n

With both the handgun (dubbed \u2018Sword\u2019) and the shotgun, you can hold down the trigger to charge your shot, and I can imagine this being the case for the entire arsenal. Once I began experimenting with the power of a charged shot to the head (yes, this is a headshot game – there\u2019s no great emphasis on dismemberment, despite it feeling like you\u2019re playing Dead Space at times), I quickly realised firing off a weak normal round was ultimately as good as discarding it. From then on, every shot was charged. This, coupled with strategically taking down enemies to prevent merging, evolved my playstyle from the instant failure of run-and-gun to the overwhelming success of tactical consideration. Finally, burning fallen enemies became the third vital tool in that gameplay loop, whether that be during the action or post-battle. <\/p>\n

I quickly realised firing off a weak normal round was ultimately as good as discarding it. From then on, every shot was charged.<\/section>\n

You\u2019ll find torch fuel at regular pick-up stations, and you can deploy it with a quick tap of the left bumper. At first, you can only carry one container of fuel at a time, but I managed to upgrade and add an additional slot during my short playthrough. Torch fuel is vital not only for destroying enemies’ corpses for good, but it also works as an emergency defence, igniting a ring of fire at your feet that not only wards off attacking Orphans, but will burn any corpses that may still be in your vicinity. Once again, this emphasises the importance of tactical positioning. Why waste a unit of torch fuel just burning a single body when you can damage an active foe at the same time?<\/p>\n

Having all of this in play results in a combat system that rewards patience and well-considered tactics. And when I fitted all the individual mechanics together, it felt clear this was always Bloober\u2019s intention, especially as, unlike its peers, Cronos lacks any kind of dodge mechanic. And after spending a lot of time with both Resident Evil 3 and Silent Hill 2 in recent years, a dodge was something I sorely missed at first, and led to some pretty close (and not-so-close) calls in combat encounters. But after getting to grips with the combat rhythm, I quickly realised that I could live without it, and the game was never designed with this in mind.<\/p>\n