Distributor provided a review copy.
For the first couple of attempts and hours with Cronos: The New Dawn, I was pretty certain I intensely disliked the game.
It was slow and meticulous and I was constantly fighting against the game with how I wanted to progress. I went in expecting one thing and got something else entirely.
In short, I had to take a step or two back and rethink my entire approach to a genre that Cronos doesn't redefine in any way. Instead, it does things with clarity and precision, which in turn leads to a hypnotic and cathartic gaming experience well worth its asking price.
If that sounds maddening, welcome to the last three weeks or so that I've spent with the game. It has taken sanity points from me, and I doubt I'll get them back. And that's not a knock on it, either.
On the surface, Cronos: The New Dawn, is as unsurprising as it gets. It's a third-person survival horror shooter that lifts from both Resident Evil and Dead Space, set in a world that is most kindly described as derivative.
After a global pandemic (referrred to as, sigh, The Change) leaves the world a ruined a husk, zombies (referred to as, sigh, Orphans) roam the streets of a deserted Poland, now overgrown and falling apart. As The Traveler, you can move through time and space, witnessing the world before and after the collapse – I'm sorry, The Change – as you piece together the means of survival for another day.
Much of the story is told through written and audio logs, and it's not exactly riveting at any point. You can figure out where everything is going within the first couple of hours, leaving the rest of the 20-hour campaign feeling a little light on content.
It's thankful, then, that Bloober team nailed the aesthetics, creating one of the most visually interesting and moody worlds seen in games this year. Everything about the post-collapse Poland is fantastic, from the intensely unnerving cramped spaces in hollowed-out buildings, or the looming spires of former apartment blocks and churches. Wherever you look, there's something horrifyingly beautiful to see, and that makes up for a lot of the narrative shortcomings.
Similarly, the flourishes in the steam/dieselpunk aesthetics are riveting. There's something incredibly captivating about the way Bloober Team has utilized found-material builds and a 12 Monkeys -style hobo-sci-fi look to create unique additions to a well-worn genre. Check out, for example, the spine-tingling glove The Traveler uses to extract memories. It's something between dentists equipment and the worst nightmares ever devised, yet you can't look away when it's in use.
I also love the way how everything in the safe houses feels like it's just thrown about, as if anyone who comes through is so tired they can't be arsed to put things away in a neat and tidy fashion. There's a lot of unspoken storytelling going on in Cronos, and it makes the game sing far more eloquently than anything in the written portions.
But it's the gameplay that really shines and makes Cronos one of the must-have indie titles of the year. This is a difficult, yet surprisingly addictive combination of slow-and-steady terror mixed with bursts of frenetic violence.
For the first half of the game, you're basically a walking dinner plate. Everything is out to get you, and fighting back always feels like shooting a pea gun at a incoming bullet train. Monsters come at you in thick waves, and your weapons take a surprisingly long time to become useful. When they do, well, things become a lot more fun for you – and less so for the monsters.
But the scarcity of both fire power and ammunition in the early hours of the game forces the player into crafting almost Home Alone -style bottlenecks and cheesing techniques, which prove surprisingly satisfying as you progress through the setpieces. Once I realized just how little ammunition you actually get, it amped up the tension considerably. I'm not a great shot in games, and the enemies flail and move in unnatural patterns as they approach, which together proved a hellish combination.
Yet that's where the fun comes in. Cronos is never better than when you're at the bottom of the totem pole. Alongside Resident Evil 2 Remake, it's one of the few games that lives up to the title of survival horror. I was scared all the time, and I loved it.
Sadly, the one part of combat that I genuinely hated was the boss battles. Like most others in this genre, they slow the game down, and they're just not fun. I would have preferred larger sequences of enemy waves even to this, and those are already a chore.
Accessibility options, likewise, are a dud. Cronos has no difficulty settings and all other settings are basically non-existent as well. This is a title intended to be experienced in one way, and one way only. Which is a choice, but a bad one. Quite frankly, I would recommend using cheats or mods if you have cognitive disabilities or can't play games without some accessibility settings. The mood and tension in Cronos are both worth the effort.
I might appear harsh towards Cronos in multiple areas, and it does deserve a lot of flack for its writing and bullheaded approach to simple things like accessibility.
But what Cronos gets right, it gets really right. This is an immensely moody and fun game that emphasis that part beautifully. It crafts a lane for itself and doesn't even remotely try to move away from it. There's purity to that singularity of vision, especially when it does it so well.
Cronos scared me, it made me jumpy, and I had a blast every unnerving minute I spent with it. That's precisely why I play survivor horror titles, and to achieve that means the game has done the job right.
