Cronos: The New Dawn review – Dead Space x Resident Evil

The creators behind the Silent Hill 2 remake present an original survival horror, involving a deadly pandemic and constantly evolving monsters.

Before the release of the Silent Hill 2 remake we were amongst the many fans that felt Polish developer Bloober Team were not the right people to take on the project. We’ve never thought much of their Layers Of Fear games, or cyberpunk title Observer, while The Medium, which was a very clear homage to Silent Hill, was one of the worst things they’ve ever done.

We were happy to be proven completely wrong though, as they did a sterling job with the remake, adding to and even improving on Konami’s classic. Most other horror fans felt the same way, which suddenly put a lot of pressure on Bloober’s first new project since then: a brand new IP that has had the unfortunate luck to launch just a day after Hollow Knight: Silksong.

We’re not sure what it’s doing coming out in early September anyway, when it surely would’ve been more appropriate for it to launch closer to Halloween. But, unfortunately, a poorly chosen release date is the least of the problems with Cronos: The New Dawn.

Although the majority of Bloober Team’s output is original IP, most of their games are very obviously derivative of other, more famous, titles. The primary influence here – from the clunky sci-fi suit worn by the main character to the grotesque monsters – is sci-fi series Dead Space. That’s not a bad starting point though, as EA has made it clear there’s very unlikely to be another one and Cronos is by no means a clone.

The set-up casts you as an unnamed time traveller, trying to find a cure for a plague that has turned humans into monsters called Orphans. You’re able to time travel back through rifts, to an alternative history versions of 1980s Poland, in order to harvest the ‘essence’ of unaffected people, in the hope that through them you can piece together what happened and find a way to save humanity.

Like most time travel stories, the plot doesn’t make much sense, but each new essence has an increasingly adverse effect on your mental state, to the point where you start hallucinating – not unlike Isaac Clarke in Dead Space.

The story is potentially interesting, but it’s let down by the fact that the main character not only lacks a name but any discernible personality. She’s stoic to a fault and keeping her face hidden the whole time only makes it even harder to care what happens to her.

The Orphans are very obviously inspired by The Thing, with lots of thrashing tentacles and spider-like limbs. They also have the key gimmick that if they come across any of their defeated brethren, they can absorb their remains into themselves and become bigger and more powerful.

That’s a neat idea but it doesn’t create the level of variety it seems it should, since it’s a bit too easy to prevent them from become something unmanageable. If you keep your wits (and your limited ammo) about you it’s usually fairly easy to stop them merging and if you want to stop them completely you can flamethrower them – which, again, is taken straight from The Thing.

The bigger problem here is that the combat is very unimaginative and flat, with only the boss battles creating any real excitement. Unlike in Dead Space there’s no special technique for dealing with the Orphans, like having to shoot their limbs off first, as Bloober instead lean on Resident Evil 4’s more straightforward action for inspiration.

Cronos’ gunplay is nowhere near as entertaining as Resident Evil 4 (original or remake) and that’s a big problem, because there’s also no equivalent of the slow-mo stasis or telekinetic abilities from Dead Space. Although there are a number of zero-G section.

There’re also some mildly interesting time-travelling puzzles – usually involving repairing broken parts of the scenery – but outside of bringing back explosive gas canisters, to use again, they’re never really part of the combat.

Although there are some impressively gloomy looking environments to explore, the other main issue with the game is that’s not very scary. There’re some jump scare-inducing set pieces, where Orphans will suddenly appear from nowhere, but the overall level of tension is disappointingly low. And despite how much it borrows from The Thing it’s surprisingly tame in terms of gore, with an age rating of just 16.

Chronos: The New Dawn is functional as a combat-oriented survival horror but, as with so many of Bloober Team’s games, the fact that it’s an original IP does not mean the game itself is doing anything new. Instead, it’s an uninspired remix of older, better titles that somehow feels more derivative than if it had been an official sequel to one of them.

Bloober Team is a talented studio, but it seems that working on remakes is what draws out their skills the most, as they no longer have to beat around the bush when paying homage to their favourite games and movies. They’re currently developing a remake of Silent Hill 1, which given their work on its sequel should turn out very well. But, once again, their original IP turns to be nothing of the sort.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
Price: £49.99
Publisher: Bloober Team
Developer: Bloober Team
Release Date: 5th September 2025
Age Rating: 16

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