Cronos: The New Dawn Reviews
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 is a gripping survival horror experience that takes Bloober Team to a new level. Cronos: The New Dawn is the best survival horror game of this year.
Review in German | Read full review
Bloober Team's Cronos: The New Dawn is a confident new IP that builds on the studio's horror strengths with a distinct visual style and a challenging combat system. However, the experience is held back by technical issues, a clunky inventory, and unpolished combat mechanics that hinder its otherwise ambitious design.
Nevertheless, the game's balance is successful, perhaps precisely because the game primarily focuses on one level. Because "Cronos" is always challenging at a consistently (high!) level and doesn't make any compromises. One thing is clear: If you like the genre, you have to get it!
Review in German | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn is an excellent survival horror game. The story is compelling, the world is impressive, and the Polish influences create a fresh look and feel. The combat is challenging and rewarding, and the claustrophobic levels and jump scares are excellently designed. Players who enjoy exploring will be richly rewarded here. Minor drawbacks, such as bugs and limited enemy variety, hardly detract from this. Turn up the music, grab your weapons, and prepare for a journey through a world that's both beautiful and terrifying. This is a horror game you'll happily play through twice.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
This is a game that won me over more for its narrative and atmosphere. If it were just for the gameplay, I might not have enjoyed the experience as much.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn leans on familiar gameplay but shines with its apocalyptic story, dystopian 1980s Krakow setting, and haunting synth soundtrack—held back only by clunky dodging and the lack of a proper map.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn is a fantastic new survival horror IP that brings its own spin. A story elevated by some fantastic environmental storytelling, impactful sound design, and challenging combat makes this a title hard to put down.
Cronos: The New Dawn is born of the same vein as some of the more classic single player horror games, and while the game definitely plays like a lot of the more recent entries it’s still its own thing. It borrows from a lot of them for sure, but there is a really good story here. The gameplay is right in line with the most recent horror remakes we’ve been getting lately, all while being able to borrow from past versions of those games by being tough but fair.
Cronos: The New Dawn is more than just a horror game. It’s a complete experience that blends an engaging narrative, suffocating atmosphere, challenging gameplay, and creative puzzles. It’s also a reminder that survival horror still has plenty of room for innovation.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn is proof Bloober Team can make exceptional horror games, with terrifying monsters and some great ideas.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a lot of fun as a survival horror. While not terrifying, it is still stressful and does something unique with the genre.
Bloober Team has partially succeeded in breaking away from its traditions with Cronos: The New Dawn, delivering a different identity built around the concept of time rifts and enemy fusion, which gave the experience a distinctive flavour. On the other hand, the studio strayed from its strength in crafting compelling stories, offering a survival journey that feels far removed from the sense of horror we had expected.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn is a great survival horror game, utilizing its tough and grueling combat to complement the grueling and unforgiving atmosphere of Eastern Europe in the 1980s. It pushes the staples of the genre, like inventory management, to their extremes, without feeling overly difficult or unfair. The narrative won't blow you away, and it doesn't answer some of the more compelling questions its sci-fi story sets up, but you always want to learn more and find the next piece of information. It's not quite transcendent in the way some recent survival horror games have been, but it's a great time and absolutely worth diving into.
Cronos: The New Dawn seems like the hidden successor to the Dead Space Trilogy that takes us back to its roots. The game offers incredible sound design and a terrifying atmosphere. The amazing graphics come with some fps drops, even in Performance Mode in the PS5. Melee is sadly a joke if you run out of bullets, but the great weapon design makes up for it. The story is also well done with the right amount of scares.
Review in German | Read full review
Cronos: The New Dawn surprised me above all with its unique type of narration and the blend of post-apocalyptic Poland with true portrayal of everyday life in the PRL era. I’m convinced not everyone will share my enthusiasm, but for me, Cronos is a game I would gladly pay even 350 PLN for, much more than the developers themselves suggest, and despite the higher price, I would feel fully satisfied with the purchase.
Review in Polish | Read full review
It becomes increasingly apparent as you play through it that Cronos is a passion project, one of those titles that a studio finally manages to develop after hitting it big with a commercially successful release. Following something like Silent Hill 2 with an entirely new horror IP takes a lot of confidence, but that bold move has certainly paid off, as Bloober Team’s vision and execution are tremendously impressive.
Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober Team’s best game yet and a clear showcase of their growth as a studio. Its mysterious world, grounded yet engaging characters, restrained use of horror and exposition, and striking visuals make it a worthy title among its contemporaries. The combat, however, can feel uneven at times, keeping it just short of true greatness.
Cronos: The New Dawn is excellent. Gorgeous graphics, smartly deliberate gameplay, an intriguing story, and incredible music create a new IP that is easily Bloober Team’s best.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a testament to Bloober Team's maturity within the survival horror genre. The studio delivers a dark, complex, and engaging experience that consistently balances psychological horror with science fiction elements. While not accessible to everyone, mainly due to its slower pace and high resource management requirements, it stands out as one of the genre's most memorable experiences in 2025. For those who enjoy the challenge and immersion of classic survival horror, Cronos is a must-play title.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review