Cronos: The New Dawn solidifies the Bloober Team style

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Despite being met with skepticism due to its predecessors’ mixed reception, the 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2 turned out to be both a critical and financial triumph. Fans had concerns that it might suffer the same fate as Bloober Team’s previous titles, 2021’s The Medium and 2023’s Layers of Fear. However, in revamping a horror staple, something remarkable occurred, and Silent Hill 2 struck the right chord. It didn’t revolutionize the genre, instead adopting a more familiar style following Resident Evil 4, but it was a massive success, convincing all the skeptics that Bloober Team knew exactly how to craft a contemporary adaptation of a horror masterpiece. With Cronos: The New Dawn, Bloober Team aims to stick with a proven recipe.

In the game Cronos, you embark on a thrilling sci-fi journey through time, assuming the role of The Traveler who delves into an alternate 1980s Poland. As Jacek Zięba, one of the co-game directors, explains to DBLTAP, we selected the ’80s in Cronos because it was a challenging period for Poland. However, this unfavorable time provides an excellent backdrop for horror elements and enhances our storytelling.

Nowa Huta was originally designed to be a post-WW2 socialist district within Kraków under Soviet rule, envisioned as a utopia, yet these aspirations and ideals never fully materialized. Today, the district, along with its notorious steelworks, serve as points of debate among contemporary locals. As Zięba puts it, “We picked Nowahuta because it’s unique; the city with brutalist architecture that aligns perfectly with our cassette futurism.” It carries a sense of monumentality, both in terms of its grand design and the fact that a planned, yet unbuilt, clocktower has become one of the game’s most prominent symbols.

In the game “Cronos: The New Dawn,” the objective is to uncover details about significant individuals’ locations at the time of a world-altering event known as “The Change.” Then, you’ll be able to travel through time and find these people prior to “The Change” to bring them back before it happens.

The Cataclysmic Occurrence brought about widespread destruction, reducing roads to rubble, damaging structures, and metamorphosing the human race into Orphans – peculiar beings who augment their power by consuming any form of flesh. This isn’t merely a tale to explain why they pursue and assault you; Orphans can fuse with deceased Orphans, thereby growing stronger, larger, and more challenging to subdue.

To counteract the danger of the “Merge system”, you should strategically decide whether to burn the remains of defeated enemies, considering that doing so consumes valuable resources. A simple click of a button releases a burst of fire from the Traveler, capable of incinerating enemy corpses or large biological matter to create a path to new locations. Since your fuel for this flame is scarce, you can’t burn every corpse you encounter. Instead, choose your moments wisely and make thoughtful decisions about which corpses could potentially become threats later on and which won’t.

The Traveler is immune to fire, which is certainly beneficial. Instead of shooting explosive barrels and fuel cans, you can simply punch them if you’re being pursued by enemies, taking the damage yourself. Given the scarcity of ammo, it’s wise to make every shot count, and that’s where powering up your shots becomes useful.

In this game, every weapon has the ability to power up its shots. This means instead of weak, quick shots from a pistol, you can deal substantial damage with a single powerful bullet, strategically aimed at vulnerable spots. However, there’s a trade-off: you must remain stationary to unleash these powerful shots, and enemies become more dangerous when you do so because their projectiles are harmless until that moment. This adds an element of strategic risk and reward to each encounter. If you want to make the most of your limited resources, you’ll need to take risks and potentially expose yourself to danger. It’s akin to attempting a headshot followed by a roundhouse kick in Resident Evil 4, but with a more realistic twist.

When asked about the influence of Resident Evil on the team, Zięba responds with a straightforward “Quite a bit.” or “We’ve been influenced quite a bit by Resident Evil.

As confirmed by co-game director Wojciech Piejko, “Resident Evil 2 remake is among my all-time favorite games.” It’s evident they are keen on working on a Resident Evil game, though it remains to be seen when or even if such a project will come to fruition.

In the early trials against the final boss of the preliminary version, I found myself rapidly depleting my ammunition, questioning if I possessed sufficient supplies to win the battle. However, after a well-executed run where I strategically and accurately discharged charged shots, one right after another, I felt victoriously compensated for mastering the arena layout, anticipating the monster’s movements, and my sharp shooting skills. In case you find yourself completely out of ammo, you can engage in close-quarters combat with satisfying Dead Space-like force by punching and stomping.

Essentially, the game design for this new title seems reminiscent of the layout found in the Silent Hill 2 remake, yet boasts its unique atmosphere. While it may not possess the legendary setting and figures that Silent Hill is renowned for, it certainly captures the essence of the remake’s gameplay, which has been shaped over decades by survival horror game design and honed through a genre classic, making it highly acclaimed.

In a unique blend of Brutalist sci-fi aesthetics and real-world influences, Cronos: The New Dawn offers a distinctive feel and ambiance that sets it apart from many survival horror games. Unlike its predecessors, it doesn’t need to adhere strictly to past narratives or games; instead, it serves as a testament to the creative prowess of Bloober Team, demonstrating their capability to craft an engaging survival horror experience all on their own. Here’s hoping that Cronos will indeed become one of the outstanding horror games in 2025.

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2025-07-28 17:16