Cronos: The New Dawn Reviews
Cronos feels like an exemplary concept with aesthetics and lore that make a player want to dive deep into the storylines presented before me. But its bulky movement and gritty combat slowed it down exponentially, to the point of feeling like wandering through a tar-filled dystopia with no hope of relief and a pathway that gave the facsimile of an open world but was a very directed path. We had hoped for a bit more from the game, but sadly it fell a bit haggard under the weight of its own armor.
Cronos: The New Dawn places players into the shoes of a Traveller, an enigmatic operative sent deep into the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Poland in search of answers after a cataclysmic event.
Cronos: The New Dawn is like the spiritual successor to the golden age of survival horror, a time when games weren't afraid to scare, frustrate, and punish players equally. Not everyone will enjoy Cronos: The New Dawn. It can be punishing, overwhelming, and emotionally distant at times. But for people who really want to be scared, it's a work of art in terms of design and tension.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a striking survival horror experience that excels in atmosphere, storytelling, and exploration, immersing players in a bleak yet captivating world. While combat pacing and resource frustration prevent it from reaching absolute greatness, its strengths far outweigh its flaws.
Cronos: The New Dawn checks most of the survival-horror boxes, but is held back by clunky combat and an underwhelming narrative.
Cronos: The New Dawn presents an intriguing mystery to unravel and a creepy sci-fi hellscape to explore, but its run-of-the-mill combat system prevents it from stepping out of the shadows cast by survival-horror heavyweights like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 that clearly inspired it.
The scariest part of Cronos: The New Dawn is probably the frustrating combat, and while it boasts a selection of surprisingly cool puzzles, they're not enough to save the experience.
There is a great survival horror game at the centre of Cronos, but it would have been much stronger if it had broken new ground rather than wondering tentatively on what came before.
Extremely limited inventory slots sometimes make these battles feel like I'm holding my breath underwater.
Bloober Team follows its Silent Hill 2 remake with an original horror story that is tense throughout, though sometimes too punishing.
But, in a genre where established games rule the roost, Bloober Team has just muscled into the conversation, as Cronos is good enough to rub shoulders with the horror greats."
Cronos: The New Dawn is a game that survival horror fans will love. It's a title that builds on the classic foundations of the genre while also bringing its own creative vision to deliver a truly worthwhile experience.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn is a great new survival horror property and I hope we see more of The Traveller's adventures in future. The clear influences from genre legends are combined with some original touches to make a game that feels familiar but also manages to innovate and surprise players too. The intriguing narrative, the enjoyable progression, and the challenging combat all combine to make an experience that cements Bloober's place as horror specialists.
Cronos: The New Dawn isn’t my favorite horror title I’ve played, but as far as original ideas go, it’s up there as one that will stay with me for how well its gameplay and narrative work off of each other.
Playing Cronos: The New Dawn is a memorable experience, not so much for its moments of pure terror, but for the way it immerses you in a devastated, abandoned, and, at the same time, dangerous world.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn feels like the first step into a universe we’d love to see expanded upon and is simply a must for any survival horror fan to try.
I’m hoping this marks the start of a bold new universe, one where Bloober Team continues to use past inspirations to forge something truly unique to itself.
The game matches the quality of Bloober Team’s pre-Silent Hill 2 efforts, but, unfortunately, they’re still going to be looking to create a masterpiece amongst their original IPs.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a confident, if somewhat slightly derivative effort which is the measure of a developer not looking to rest on its laurels or coast on recent successes. Kept in line by solid fundamentals and a story that hits the right notes, this is an easy recommendation for fans of similar games where the hospitality of the locals isn't as warm or as welcoming as you had once hoped.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a brilliant addition to the survival horror genre. In a lot of ways it's derivative, especially when it comes to how it plays and how it feels. However, Bloober has injected enough charm, curiosities, and weirdness into it to make it not only its own thing, but something almost endearing. With impeccable visuals, an entrancing score, and a captivatingly dark time-travelling mystery, Cronos: The New Dawn is a delectable piece of sci-fi horror.