Cronos: The New Dawn

First of all, I write this review to counter the negative reviews. Honestly, what are some of these reviews? Crying because it is 50 US, which is normal. Crying because it is Bloober Team . I never understood the hate. They are an extremely talented studio in my opinion and I loved them since Layers of Fear and Observer was a masterpiece. Yes, they are not really innovative and copy some things but they don*t have to be. They are one of the few studios which make bigger budget horror games and it is interesting to see how they have grown. Or crying because it is an amateur game sold as a Triple A game which is a blatant lie or crying because it is too hard and you don*t have a dodge button which is undoubtedly by design and adds to the tension. Concerning the game, it is a real survival horror game where you have to manage your ressources and where you have to utilize everything to survive. You need to hit the head for more damage or the legs to cause the enemies to fall to the ground and afterwards you need to stomp them. You need to use fire to stun the enemies and afterwards hit them with melee attacks. You need to use the environment like a car for instance to block enemies if there are too many or explosives and sometimes you simply have to run. In other words you need to play smart. The game is challenging but not too hard. Like I said it is a real survival horror game like the first Silent Hills or Resident Evils and it is extremely satisfying to (sometimes barely) survive the encounters. But the real stars here are the setting, the story and the atmosphere. I love the post apocalyptic, sometimes surreal, Polish scenery. The gameplay itself is very smooth. It is also rather slow and methodical and not only action which I like. I fully recommend the game to any horror fan and I hope to see Bloober Team evolve further. I also would love to see Cronos 2 and hope the negativity of some people will not prevent this.

I wanted to love this game but the combat is just not enjoyable at all! They throw lots of enemies at you and you literally have a single digit number of bullets on you most times. And only one can of fire as an emergency. And you have to save at checkpoints. And there is no dodge mechanic. Missing one bullet usually means you are screwed. And if two enemies merge, they create something with even more health and damage. Would have loved to explore more of this but it's not a fun challenge. This is simply NOT a scratch on Dead Space gameplay-wise.

I would like to preface this review by stating that I am a huge critic of Bloober and of their games. I have played everything that they have developed from Observer to this title, and it is impossible to speak of this game in isolation as Bloober has undergone a sort of metamorphosis in and of itself. Basically, I have always considered Bloober to be Eurojank. What is Eurojank? Well, it's Eastern European games having a grand vision, but a sloppy and buggy execution. While all their previous titles: Blair Witch, Observer, The Medium, Layers of Fear were "good enough", they were always buggy and poorly poorly optimized. Those games were acceptable to me because they were not presented as a AAA masterpiece. They fit the budget and fun was had, but were still rather somewhat annoying at times with the performance issues. Then we fast-forward to my utter contempt for Bloober....Silent Hill 2 remake. I feel as though it were not actually much better or worse than their previous attempts (optimization included), but received far far far too much praise because of the IP and nostalgia. I feel if it (SH2) were judged upon its own merits, it wouldn't stand out at all, but would be just another middling AA title. Now, we come to Cronos. There is no IP to back it, nor are there any nostalgia glasses clouding anyone's eyes. Bloober has taken their experience working with Konami, it seems, along with UE5, and also the newfound fame, and are doing their best to transition to a competent AAA Dev team. This game has ambiance for sure. The combat is brutal, the resources scarce, and the struggle to survive is ever present. Now, there are technical hiccups....I mean...It's Bloober after all. Hardware Lumen (RT) absolutely tanks fps even on the 5090, and there is still the shader compilation traversal stutter ever present in UE games. The price is absolutely ridiculous too for a new IP. However, all things considered, Good Job, Bloober Team!!! You have made it!

Like a mix of Dead Space and Clive Barker's Jericho, refreshed...

Expectation were middle, and Cronos easily riched that. Game is slow and thick with climate cream-like soup. Visually and sound-wise the game meets expectations as well. But I personally have problem with lvl. of difficulty and game mechanics. I see that Bloober wanted to make game like old RE with a touch of Dead Space, but this not this what people knowning BT have expected. They went too far, far too far! Almost every aspect of the game mechanics looks like it has been made to make you suffer. I like when on the start game is on medium level, a then new, more challenging levels unlocked. Cronos is going on differnt direction. Same story with inventory. You do really must manage this well at all time, sometimes even wasteing some resources, to free space. Crafting system slighty cheating you, not allowing to upgrade your inventory slotes or suit, even you have enough cores! Here I have to addmit, that cores are quite rare to find, so you suppsed to be rewarded if somehow, someway you found them in amount unexpected by the game . No. There is no rewards! And there is more of that, but this you must find by yourself, couse even i the light of all I sad game is still addictive and tempting you to go deeper and deeper. I know there will be a lot of people appreciate Cronos for been tough and no mercifull, saying words of his own pray - Hard game for petient players. I'm not buying this! instead of been tough as tough can be, game should loosen the reins a bit, while still remaining a demanding and more positioned versatile, including promising but quite empthy story line. Cronos is definetlly a game in category "only for fans". the average player, even an experienced one, but not necessarily a fan of this kind of atmosphere, will probably give up on this game.