Summary
Cronos: The New Dawnis developer Bloober Team’s upcoming third-person sci-fi survival horror title. Shortly following the studio’s launch of the widely anticipatedSilent Hill 2 Remaketo largely positive receptionearlier this year, it then revealed its newest IP,Cronos: The New Dawn, at the Xbox Partner Preview in October. The announcement was perhaps a little surprising, given that it came so soon after theSH2 Remake, and has many intrigued about what Bloober aims to achieve withCronos.
Following the reveal, furtherleaks aboutCronos: The New Dawnalso surfaced. These outlined some supposedly additional details of what the experience might entail. While these are secondhand and thus unconfirmed, nevertheless, combined with what Bloober has officially shown off and stated so far, they provide a good general picture of what players can expect fromCronos: The New Dawn.
Bloober Team is also known to be working on a game titledProject M,for the Nintendo Switch, although fewer details about it have been provided so far.
What to Expect So Far From Cronos: The New Dawn
Cronos: The New Dawn’s Inspirations
Before theSilent Hill 2 Remake, Bloober Teams’s titles were mainly first-person narrative-driven experiences rooted in psychological horror. However, the studio releasedThe Mediumin 2021, which was technically its first use of a third-person perspective.The Mediumhad fans playing through two worlds simultaneously to approach combat and puzzles, which could informCronos: The New Dawn’s direction.
Additionally, based on its trailer and promotional material, many immediately noticed that it seemed to clearly resemble one of the most belovedsci-fi survival horror classics,Dead Space,in a lot of ways. It looks like the case then thatCronosmay be taking cues from Bloober’s prior work onThe Mediumas well as the general atmosphere and design ofDead Spaceand similar games as its major inspirations.
Cronos: The New Dawn’s Story, Setting, and Mechanics
According toinformation available forCronos: The New Dawn, it is stated to feature among its main elements:
Expanding on these, the Traveler will explore the wastelands of the ravaged future in search of anomalous time rifts that will transport them back to an alternate 1980s Poland. In this era, the Traveler will need to search out and collect the “Essence” from certain characters, which seems to be the key to humanity’s survival. This might also be howCronos: The New Dawnwill iterate onThe Medium’s use of alternate worlds to present the parallel timelines and realities.
Design-wise,Cronos: The New Dawn’s comparisons toDead Spaceare most obviously reflected in the appearance of the Traveler, who is clad in a bulky space suit. In the trailer footage, the Traveler is seen battling grotesque creatures that invoke aspects ofDead Space’s body-horror and possibly suggest a similar combat style. Elsewhere, the Traveler plays chess against an elderly woman before a disturbing claw-like device unfolds from their suit and reaches menacingly towards her. Presumably, this is the method of extracting Essences from NPCs, and it looks brutally unsettling.
While the above is pretty much all that’s known aboutCronos: The New Dawnat this point, fans could see more revealed before the year closes, maybe at theupcoming 2024 Game Awards, or in a separate update around the same time. Either way, Bloober Team has proven it can handle third-person survival horror well, and fans of the genre will likely want to keep a close eye onCronos: The New Dawn. The studio’s vision for its new IP contains a lot of potential, and promises a compelling experience that could elevate Bloober’s profile further while contributing to the general streak of excellent sci-fi horror titles into the new year.
