Cronos: The New Dawn

I honestly didn’t expect this game to be so good, especially since I was skeptical when it was first announced. The gameplay is engaging, and wise inventory management is a must. Combat sequences can be tough at times, especially if you go in unprepared. The graphics are impressive, and the sound design is phenomenal. If you’re looking for a game similar to the Resident Evil or Dead Space series, this one is definitely worth your attention. On the downside, there are some technical issues, like occasional stutters and frame drops. The game is demanding to run, but that’s no surprise considering it’s built on Unreal Engine 5. Thankfully, these issues aren’t severe enough to ruin the experience. In summary: I highly recommend giving Cronos: The New Dawn a try.

Playing on a 9070 XT requires me to disable raytracing (pretty much mandatory) and lower my settings or enable upscaling. I don't expect to do either with any game, nor do I feel like I should. I want to like this game and I liked the 2 hours I played so far, but it's unacceptable to release a game in this state. Refunded for now, will buy once (if) fixed.

Don't go into this expecting something like the Silent Hill 2 remake; this is a very different beast. For one while it's not as scary but it is way more suspenseful & high stress. The enemies, Orphans, are inspired by Dead Space's Necromorphs but instead of adapting to limb loss, they absorb their dead to evolve into stronger variants. So after every fight there's a lingering sense of dread, because you know when you come through an arena again there might another encounter & those enemies will use the old ones to evolve. Unless you burn the bodies, which adds resource management because you might need the burning fuel to access a secret or the resources may be better spent on ammo or healing items. Gameplay wise it's a basic shooter at the core, no frills & reminds me of third person shooters before Gears Of War set the standard. It works & is fine, but I just wish there was some kind of dodge or dash! That's the one thing I wish Bloober brought over from the SH2 remake; the combat dodge. Without it combat can be more stressful than it needs to be. Bloober have done a bloody good job with Cronos, it's a unique beast & while it's not a, debatably, modern classic their SH2 remake it's more than deserving of a buy.

If you like survival horrors, you are going to like this game, it checks every survival horror game element: scarcity, feeling vulnerable, etc. My only gripe with the game is the lenght of it, I finished the game in 16 hours but I feel like the game could've been a 10 to 12 hours long game and be as good or even better.

No, really, what is this? I want to play it to the end. To find out. What? Not the graphic, not the performance on my RTX3060 laptop (30 fps), but the story, How does it end? The story I found is not only SF, but surreal. So... What is IT?