Why you should be excited for Cronos: The New Dawn – Bloober Team’s brand-new survival horror IP

It’s fair to say that Bloober Team have made itself a household name in the gaming space with the recent Silent Hill 2 remake. Proving themselves as a talented and brilliant game studio that overcame a lot of doubt from fans of the SH series. The studio has evolved magnificently, from producing scary walking simulators to a remake of one of gaming’s most revered survival horror titles ever, to creating a brand-new IP which looks to hold so much promise!

 It's very exciting to see Cronos: The New Dawn approaching release within a couple of weeks, and we wanted to give you the rundown of what to expect and why you should be excited.


New horror IP

Cronos: The New Dawn is a brand-new survival horror IP from legendary studio Bloober Team, which looks like a cross between Dead Space and Resident Evil with major diesel-punk horror vibes. The first things that came to mind were 12 Monkeys with Dead Space. Taking place in a world which has fallen into utter decay, players will engage in a story that ventures between the grim present and a dangerous past.

You are “The Traveller”, a wanderer between past and present, sent out into the ravenous wastelands to find rifts in the fabric of time and space which will take you to the past, or, namely, 1980s-era Poland. The reason? To determine and learn about The Change, a cataclysmic event that forever altered humanity.

Cronos: The New Dawn looks to present a classic “Day/Night” style of gameplay, which you would’ve seen in games like Alan Wake. The night is filled with danger, and the day is more of a build-up/puzzle to solve. We’ve seen plenty of the wasteland, with plenty of brutal combat, creepy horror setups and payoffs, all within a world that is breaking apart, and is invested with disgusting creatures.

Some neat vibes are happening here in Cronos, with the diesel-punk tech, bulky character designs, utterly dystopian world, and the sickening creatures with mangled flesh and twisted faces. It reeks of Dead Space and in the best possible way.

The story also has a lot of compelling notes to it, from the time travel, mystery of the event, and trying to resolve it, while not falling into the terrors of merging between past and present. As the Traveller must find key figures from the past, and use a device called the Harvester to extract their “Essences” of these key figures and have them accompany you into the future.

The impact of this is devastating over the long run, as the more you carry, the more haunted your suit becomes. This sounds like an intriguing concept, and one that aims to make you more powerful during fights, but the damaging effects will be seen and heard. As the Traveller will hear whispers, their vision flickering, and the madness rising.


Burn the past, break the future

“The creatures you kill won’t stay dead for long…. Don’t let them merge”. Those are the words from Bloober Team, where the enemies you kill won’t stay down for long, as other creatures will use the dead to merge and create new problems. The only way forward safely is to burn the bodies with a flaming stomp attack. Burning bodies is a great method to add tension, and it worked wonders in the RE remake and in the recent Hollowbody.

Not only will this be a survival tactic and a powerful mechanic that adds a lot of tension to unnerve you, but it could be expanded further in other ways. Maybe a means of solving puzzles in the past and present.

But weapons also play a key part in survival, and as a hulking iron maiden of sorts, you will be armed with weapons, including pistols and shotguns, to blast enemies apart. We can’t wait to see what other contraptions there will be to tear and burn enemies with, as melee and firearm combinations are needed to get the drop on the disturbing creatures you’ll face. There is a mix of stress-inducing action, combat and claustrophobia struggles where you will have to keep looking over your shoulder. Cronos: The New Dawn looks solid so far for the combat, being brutal, frantic, and having some tactical survival elements to keep things interesting.

We need to see more weapons, as these could prove to be the same as Dead Space’s experience with weapons, where keeping enemies away was the aim, and breaking them apart was required.


Wrapping up

The presentation and sound design also look staggeringly phenomenal, with beautiful atmospheric visuals, creepy sounds and haunting scores.  The designs look fascinating, and the bleak world tearing itself apart presents compelling narrative dangers and fears.

Bloober Team always manage to create great world-building, and in Silent Hill 2, they successfully brought in combat that was gripping and had an impact. Cronos: The New Dawn aims to deliver the same gripping combat, brilliant world design, and terrifying horror vibes they’ve perfected over the last decade.

Cronos: The New Dawn is scheduled for release on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation®5, PC (via Steam and Epic), and Switch 2. Pre-order now on Steam, Epic, Gog.com, Microsoft Store, Nintendo and PlayStation. Players who preorder the Deluxe Edition get 48-hour early access starting Wednesday, Sept. 3.