Cronos: The New Dawn – Hands-On Preview At Gamescom

bloober team, cronos: the new dawn, gamescom

It is safe to say that Horror was king at Gamescom this year, with many terrifying titles, big and small, available to play over the event. While it was exciting to see the massive booths (and queues) for Resident Evil: Requiem and Silent Hill f, at the top of my list was the upcoming third-person survival horror game from Bloober Team, Cronos: The New Dawn. Risking the embarrassment of screaming in fear in front of the devs, PR team, and fellow press, I booked myself in for an hour-long hands-on preview: “Such is our calling.”

Not heard of Cronos: The New Dawn? It is an atmospheric, third-person, survival horror game where you play as Traveller ND-3576, an operative sent on the order of the Collective to scour a nightmarish future for time rifts back to 1980s Poland, to extract key individuals during a world-changing event called the Change. Shoot, stomp, and burn grotesque abominations and stop them from merging with each other and their dead into deadlier, more terrifying monstrosities. With tense combat where every shot counts, the constant need to scavenge and manage your resources to survive, and a heavy, unrelenting atmosphere, there is one thing you need to know: DON’T. LET. THEM. MERGE.

The Cronos: The New Dawn preview at Gamescom included the opening sequence of the game, which concluded with the title card. It began with a cutscene of the Traveller, already suited and booted inside their REV-Caspule, seemingly being awoken upon arriving at their mission destination. The interior is harsh and claustrophobic, a mass of screens, pipes, and panels drowned in red light and shadows, with the Traveller held standing upright in a harness. A voice loudly echoes within the REV-Capsule, running through checks and procedures. Whether the voice belongs to a human or AI is unclear, but even its robotic nature cannot mask what could only be described as indifference to the situation, or just plain boredom.

A bank of monitors swings down in front of the Traveller, and after I answer a series of questions as part of some sort of psych evaluation or sleeper agent activation, the harness lifts to free the Traveller. The voice explains that my mission is to find my predecessor, Traveller ND-3500, and “secure the anchor”, as a compartment opens, revealing a chunky-looking pistol. Cronos: The New Dawn’s blend of Eastern European Brutalism and Retro-Futurism is on full display throughout this cutscene, from the REV-Capsule interior and pistol’s designs, to the Traveller’s bulky suit and domed helmet. It looks unfeeling, fit for purpose, but also unrefined, as is evident when the last capsule door clamp won’t release. The solution is a quick tutorial, teaching me to look, aim, and shoot at the latch, which finally comes loose when I hit it with a charged shot. Finally, the Traveller exits the vessel and steps into the cold, open world beyond.

The path forward is clear, yet the environment has an oppressive feel not too dissimilar to the REV-Capsule, with hazy air and dark looming shapes filling my view. Using my compass to check my quest marker, and reloading my pistol to notice how few rounds I have, I move forward, the Traveller’s natural pace a steady, meticulous stride, and going forward, she records what she has encountered. Noticeably, in the past tense. After passing the foreshadowing remains of a playground, I’m plunged into darkness as I enter a building that appears to have been an apartment block. With only the odd shaft of light illuminating my surroundings, I step slowly forward around holes in the wooden floors and scattered debris. Moving between rooms and floors, I learn how to duck or sidle through holes in walls (during which the Traveller’s pistol flashed out and back into existence with a very cool effect), and collect energy, which is used to buy resources, ammo, and purchase upgrades. I also put the Traveller’s ability to punch and stomp to the test, smashing marked wooden barriers and boxes to uncover new paths and resources, respectively.

During my methodical search of the crumbling ruins, my bulbous head was on a constant swivel, checking every creak or moan just beyond my field of view. I pick up and read several documents, from propaganda material to personal letters and diary entries, shedding a little bit of light on what happened in the lead-up to the Change. Eventually, I make my way into a tailor’s backroom, complete with creepy, faceless mannequins. Some movement prompts the Traveller to turn on a mounted flashlight that illuminates where I am facing (much to my relief), spotlighting a door with a futuristic-looking lock on it in need of a code. I walk around sewing machine stations and rails of clothes to head through another door into the front of the shop. All the windows and the front door are covered by large metallic grates and sheets, with thick cables criss-crossing the dusty floor. The switch to unlock the door is across from it, sharing the shop counter with several more mannequins. It’s currently inoperable and needs two fuses, one of which I find in the same room. I also find my first Travel Log, one of Cronos: The New Dawn’s collectibles, with a message from another Traveller, and the code for the locked door.

Instead of heading back to use the code, I try another door to find it locked by regular means, so I take the final option and walk upstairs. Unsettling noises seem to follow me to the next floor, but I try to ignore them as I jump across a gap and drop down into a long room with a desk at the other end. Slowly, I approach the desk, ready for something to leap out from behind it, only to be startled by a falling clock. I grab the last fuse on the desk and turn around, only for something to start banging on a door, trying to get in. With each step forward I take, pistol trained on the door, another thud dislodges more dust, until a tall, horrifying humanoid creature bursts into the room. Clumsily, it turns to face me, its form a mass of twisted flesh, spiky protrusions jutting out of its head and shoulders, fully encasing one of its arms. Time to put my very basic training to the test!

In Cronos: The New Dawn, every shot matters, with headshots being the quickest way to put down a foe. Normal shots will get the job done but do less damage, using up more ammo, so charged shots are the way to go. But here’s the deal with charged shots: they are a commitment. Once you begin charging a round, you either see it through to the end or let go of the trigger to fire a regular shot. This means that whichever shot you plan to do, as soon as you press or hold that trigger, you are using a bullet. The other detail about charged shots to know is that after they have charged up, they will fire straight away. While the charging animation and sound design is easy to read, the pressure is on with the knowledge that there is only a certain amount of time to line up your shot.

I line up my first charged shot, only for it to whisk past the creature’s head as it winds up an attack from several feet away. I panic, firing a regular shot into it as it slams its extended spiked-covered appendage on me, knocking me down. I run past my attacker to the other end of the long room, checking my heart rate monitor-style health bar in the bottom left corner, now yellow and erratic instead of green and stable. I stop, turn, and line up my next charged shot, and hit my first headshot. The monster reels, eventually lifting its head back, now partially missing and oozing with blood. I step back, charging my next shot as the creature begins moving towards me, but I have the time and space to land my second headshot. Before the body has even hit the floor, I have run over and begin stomping on its remains, a mix of triumph, relief, and instinct from my Dead Space days.

It’s that blend of minimal movement options and resources, limited space, and purposeful shooting that cranks up the tension, pushing you to make quick calls that could lead to your survival or demise. I head through the hole in the wall and find myself back in front of the door needing a code. Interacting with it, the view zooms in on the mechanism and a keypad, with the code I learned from the Travel Log on screen. The lock retracts once I enter the code, and I step into the next room to find more energy and a shell patch, which I use to repair my suit and return my heart rate monitor to a calm green. I work my way back to the front of the shop and interact with the door mechanism, selecting the fuses from my limited inventory and inserting them, restoring power to the door. I quickly spend some of my energy to buy another shell patch and use some of my resources to craft more rounds before stepping outside.

I navigate the Traveller down a narrow path of cracked concrete and huge mounds of what I learn is called “Biomass” from another Travel Log. These sickening piles of bloated flesh cover this place like a virus, and are the source of the monsters, as I soon discover, seeing one burst forth from a wall, leaving behind what looked like an open wound. I put it down with as few shots as possible, and slowly made my way through what appeared to be an indoor market. At the bottom of some stairs, I found and pet a cute kitty, who left me a treat! This was a surprisingly touching moment, with the Traveller actually talking to someone else, showing a sliver of humanity in this bleak world. My way forward is blocked by another locked door, and the key is tucked away in an office at the back of one of the shops. Just as luck would have it, a larger monster that I had caught glimpses of earlier decided now would be the perfect time to attack. I survive my hardest confrontation yet, dashing around my foe between shop shelves, taking my shots when I am certain I have the time.

I find another resource cabinet and an upgrade station left by other Travellers, and use a core I found while searching for resources to improve my shell’s integrity, improving my durability. The last portion of the demo has me head up a flight of stairs, where I find a locked-down door and another barred with a futuristic lock. Exploring the offices on this floor, I discover some ammo for my Torch, which I can use to burn certain bits of Biomass to clear a path, set fire to dead bodies, or stun enemies with. After setting some Biomass aflame, I retrieve a peculiar handle, which I take back to the locked door. Inside the locked office is the switch to lift the lockdown, leading to a stairway up to a haunting vista of a shattered skyscraper frozen in time, and then the aforementioned title card.

A solid indicator of a good time is to be disappointed it’s over, and that is exactly how I felt at the end of my Cronos: The New Dawn preview at Gamescom. It feels like a strong and bold introduction to Bloober Team’s next new IP, promising a story and worlds rich with lore and creativity, wrapped up in their signature eye-catching and occasionally stomach-churning art direction. And who doesn’t love a badass protagonist in a cool suit? But the biggest takeaway for me is how good the combat feels. While familiar, it is tight, demanding, and has that Bloober Team flair. From what I’ve experienced, Cronos: The New Dawn is that “forgot-to-breathe” Survival Horror that players have been hoping for.