Cronos: The New Dawn is a chilling descent into a world lost to time, a brutal and beautiful reminder of what happens when humanity forgets what it means to be alive.
Cronos: The New Dawn is the kind of game that reminds you why you fell in love with survival horror in the first place. From its opening moments, it wraps you in this eerie, oppressive atmosphere where every flicker of light and every distant noise feels like a warning. It took me right back to 2008, sitting in a dark room, nervously gripping a controller as I pushed through the original Dead Space. Bloober Team has crafted something that feels both nostalgic and entirely new here, a haunting vision of decay and rebirth that stands proudly among the greats of the genre.
At its core, Cronos: The New Dawn is a sci-fi horror story about loss, time, and identity. You play as The Traveler, a mysterious humanoid being who awakens in a desolate facility on an alternate version of Earth, centuries after a catastrophic viral event wiped out most organic life. This isn't your typical apocalypse filled with survivors clinging to hope. This is a world long past saving, where what's left is a broken mirror of civilization, machines overgrown by fungus, streets cracked and bleeding rust, and a haunting silence broken only by the shuffling of the infected.
What sets this apart is how the game builds its narrative through discovery. The Traveler doesn't remember much at first, and her cold, almost robotic demeanor reflects that. As you uncover data logs, recordings, and the remains of those who once lived here, fragments of her past and humanity's downfall start to emerge. There's a real emotional weight to the gradual return of her humanity. You can hear it in her voice, see it in the small movements she makes when she hesitates or looks at a relic from the old world. It's not just a character arc, it's a slow resurrection of a soul.
The Traveler's design tells part of that story too. She's an arresting figure, clad in a hybrid suit that looks part astronaut and part deep-sea diver. The heavy metallic helmet, with faint reflections of light dancing across it, reinforces this theme of diving into the abyss, both literal and metaphorical. Every step she takes echoes through empty corridors, every clank of metal reminding you that you are something not quite human exploring a place that used to be.
Combat in Cronos: The New Dawn is equally deliberate and satisfying. The central mechanic revolves around a transforming firearm that serves as your main tool for survival. It's a piece of retro-futuristic technology that can shift between multiple modes, a hand cannon, a shotgun, an SMG, and eventually a devastating energy weapon that can vaporize entire groups of enemies. What's incredible is how each form feels distinct. The hand cannon packs a meaty punch, the shotgun rattles with power as shells blast enemies into chunks of rotting flesh, and the SMG is perfect for keeping those twitchy, spindly creatures at bay.
Upgrading the weapon is crucial, and Bloober made sure you feel each improvement. More damage, more stability, less charge time, more ammo etc. and you feel each upgrade. When that BFG-like mode charges up with a low hum and bursts into a thunderous discharge, it's an absolute power trip.
The enemies you face are some of the most disturbing creations in recent memory. They're these horrific bloated and gangrenous creatures, their bodies twisted by infection and time. They groan, gurgle, and howl in ways that feel almost human, which makes killing them feel both thrilling and tragic. The game plays with your nerves constantly, making sure you're never quite sure what's waiting around the next corner. Sometimes it's a monster bursting through a wall, other times it's nothing at all, and that silence is even worse.
The horror here isn't just about jump scares, though there are a few that will make you flinch. It's about dread. The lighting, the pacing, the tension of limited ammo, it all feeds into this rhythm of fear and relief. Every encounter feels earned. You plan your shots, you count every bullet, and when you finally torch a group of enemies with your torch, the satisfaction is unmatched. Fire is your greatest ally in Cronos. It cleanses and purifies, and since The Traveler is immune to it, it becomes an extension of her will. Watching infected abominations ignite as you stop them from absorbing other infected and evolving into more powerful versions to only put a round straight through their brain as they collapse in screaming heaps is both grotesque and cathartic.
Between combat encounters, the game slows down, giving you room to breathe and explore. The level design is nothing short of excellent. It's a greatest hits collection of horror settings done right, abandoned apartments, crumbling laboratories, forgotten catacombs, derelict hospitals, and a police station frozen in decay. Each area connects logically to the next, often looping back into previous zones through cleverly placed shortcuts. This interconnectedness gives the world a sense of realism, as if you're exploring a real place that has been swallowed by time rather than moving through disconnected “levels.”
Puzzles are sprinkled throughout and strike a perfect balance between accessibility and cleverness. You'll find yourself realigning circuits or piecing together time-displaced fragments to progress. None of them are overly complex, but they give you that brief, satisfying “aha” moment before you move on. They're a welcome change of pace, grounding the player between tense firefights and quiet stretches of exploration.
One of the most striking things about Cronos: The New Dawn is its art direction. The retro-futuristic design philosophy runs deep, blending 1960s analog tech with futuristic elements and impossible architecture. Computers hum with cathode glow, corridors are lit by flickering neon, and surfaces glisten with organic slime. It's grotesque and beautiful at the same time. The color palette shifts subtly depending on the time period or dimension you're exploring, with cold blues and greens dominating the main timeline and fiery oranges painting the infected zones. The environmental storytelling is rich, and you'll constantly find little details, a photograph, a bloodstained note, a child's toy, that reveal the human cost behind the catastrophe.
Bloober Team's mastery of sound design is on full display here. The distant echoes of something moving, the faint buzz of electrical currents, the groan of metal under stress, it all combines to keep you on edge. The ambient soundtrack doesn't intrude but lingers in the background, growing louder only when it needs to emphasize dread or action. The mechanical breathing of The Traveler, the satisfying click of reloading, and the wet splatter of enemy gore all sound crisp and deeply unsettling. Playing with headphones is almost mandatory.
The story takes some fascinating turns as it delves into themes of time travel and memory. Without spoiling too much, you begin to realize that the line between past and present is blurred. The Traveler's mission isn't just about understanding what happened but about confronting the cyclical nature of destruction and rebirth. The narrative toys with paradoxes and alternate realities in ways that keep you guessing until the very end. By the time the credits roll, you're left with both answers and more questions, the best kind of ending for a story like this.
Performance on the PS5 is kinda solid throughout. The game runs at a smooth 60 frames per second, with only the occasional stutter when lots of particle effects are on screen. The haptic feedback on the DualSense controller adds a lot to the experience. You can feel the weight of every shot, the subtle vibration as your weapon shifts forms, and even the faint heartbeat when danger approaches. The adaptive triggers tighten under pressure, giving each gun its own personality. Combined with the excellent 3D audio, it makes you feel fully present in this decaying world.
If there's one thing Cronos: The New Dawn does perfectly, it's the pacing. The game knows exactly when to scare you, when to let you breathe, and when to hit you with an emotional punch. The gradual reveal of the world's history, the haunting atmosphere, and the unrelenting sense of isolation keep you glued from start to finish. There's also a rewarding sense of progression. Collecting energy cores and other resources for upgrades gives you tangible improvements, making you feel stronger without ever making the horror disappear. You're still vulnerable, still hunted, still haunted.
By the end, as The Traveler begins to rediscover what it means to be human, the game transforms from a simple survival horror into something more introspective. It becomes a meditation on identity and loss, on the fragility of memory, and the cost of progress. You start the game as a machine exploring a dead world, but by the time you finish, you feel like you've earned back something more than just your humanity, you've earned understanding.
Cronos: The New Dawn is not just another horror game. It's a masterclass in atmosphere, tension, and worldbuilding. It feels handcrafted, every corridor and sound meticulously designed to make you uneasy yet curious. The gunplay is weighty, the exploration satisfying, and the story deeply intriguing. It's a game that respects the intelligence and patience of the player, rewarding those who take the time to absorb its details.
In a time when so many horror games rely on cheap tricks, Cronos stands tall as a beautifully orchestrated nightmare that's as emotionally resonant as it is terrifying. I absolutely loved every minute of it. I explored every hidden path, collected every upgrade, and absorbed every haunting detail Bloober Team hid within its decaying walls. If you're looking for a game to play this Halloween that will genuinely unsettle you and stay with you long after the credits roll, this is the one. I strongly recommend it. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a PS5 via a promo copy provided by the developer. Cronos: The New Dawn is available on PS5, PC and Xbox.
