Cronos: The New Dawn PC Review – A Haunting Survival Horror Successor to Dead Space

Cronos: The New Dawn is a brand-new original IP from renowned horror game developers Bloober Team, the studio behind the critically acclaimed remake of Konami‘s Silent Hill 2. If you’re familiar with the developer, you’ll know that outside of their recent success remaking the game that inspired the entire studio, their original IPs have received something of a mixed reception. So, my biggest question heading into Cronos: The New Dawn was: can this new IP continue the studio’s recent success, or will it be another mixed bag?

Game Name: Cronos: The New Dawn
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (reviewed), Nintendo Switch 2
Publisher(s): Bloober Team
Developer(s): Bloober Team
Release Date: September 5th 2025

What is Cronos: The New Dawn?

Inspired by games like Resident Evil and Dead Space, Cronos: The New Dawn is a third-person survival horror game set in a strange, retro-futuristic world that has been impacted by something called “The Change,” which has transformed humans into grotesque, monstrous beings known as orphans.

You play as a traveler working for an organization called the “Collective” (not that you know too much about them), tasked with recovering the souls of various people to help create a better future. Personally, this just didn’t grab me, but the atmosphere and mystery of the world kept me coming back.

From a story standpoint, I’d actually argue that the environmental storytelling you pick up on as you explore was far more engaging than the main narrative itself. At least, it was for me!

How Does Gameplay Work And Feel?

The gameplay is a completely different story from the narrative, living up to and, in many ways, surpassing my expectations. Being inspired by Resident Evil and Dead Space means that anyone who has played those games will feel a sense of familiarity with Cronos: The New Dawn, but don’t be fooled, Cronos isn’t just copying what came before… even if things initially seem that way.

As the traveler, you begin with a handgun that can shapeshift into a knuckle duster, and you’re quickly taught that you can stomp. The stomp, in particular, comes in handy after you kill an enemy, allowing you to destroy their body, which you’ll definitely want to do. If you forget to destroy the bodies of your foes, other orphan enemies can absorb them, making themselves much bigger and stronger… so think of them like Cell from Dragon Ball Z.

Luckily, as you explore, you’ll find various resources and the occasional special part that allows you to upgrade your weapon or other tools in your arsenal. These upgrades can be done at most (if not all) of the safe-room-type locations throughout Cronos: The New Dawn, and my advice would be: always do them as soon as you can.

In keeping with genre norms, there’s an inventory management system that gives you a limited number of slots to allocate everything you need. Just like in most Resident Evil titles, resources are scarce—meaning you can’t go around healing every time you get hit or shooting enemies constantly.

More On Combat

Speaking of shooting, I want to dig a bit deeper into Cronos: The New Dawn‘s combat, because I loved it, but I don’t think everyone will. Firearms and fire itself are the focus here in Cronos, although melee has its place. Each firearm you acquire has both a standard and a more powerful charged shot. These are executed by holding the right trigger and then releasing. Standard shots can be useful for slowing down enemies, especially when dealing with multiple foes, but charged shots are where your real damage comes from.

Interestingly, for a game so focused on firearms as your main method of dealing damage, the level design is much more close-quarters, which only adds to the intensity of combat. However, Bloober Team does enjoy placing a nice red barrel to help you out—so keep an eye out for those and try herding enemies toward them.

Not only will a well-placed shot on a red barrel cause any nearby orphans to catch fire and die, but it will also burn the corpses you’ve already left behind, preventing other orphans from absorbing them.

Don’t worry if you can’t find a red barrel, torch fuel is your friend, and it’s found fairly regularly. When carrying torch fuel, you can deploy it at any time with a tap of the left bumper/L1 button on your controller. Doing so will set the ground around you ablaze, along with any corpses or foes in the vicinity. Just don’t overuse it, since it can also serve as a life-saving last resort in certain situations.

The combat and movement in Cronos: The New Dawn are heavy, which allows each action to pack a huge punch. However, some players may not appreciate the lack of a dodge button, as it means you can’t easily escape trouble if backed into a corner. Still, there is the option to run, which is recommended in many situations, since ammo can be scarce. In my experience, I actually enjoyed the absence of a dodge and the more weighted movement, which kept me thinking constantly, rather than flailing in fear and scraping by the skin of my teeth.

Art Direction Over Shiny Graphics

When it comes to presentation, the visuals of Cronos: The New Dawn may not be as shiny as some of its more premium-priced competitors, but the wonderfully disgusting art direction more than makes up for it.

I’ve seen a lot of brownish-grey video games over the years, and Cronos: The New Dawn definitely shares much of that colour palette. However, having a world based on real places in Poland, albeit an apocalyptic version, combined with futuristic machinery and body-horror-style enemy designs makes Cronos: The New Dawn‘s visuals stand out. Something about the aesthetic feels rustic and rough around the edges, but in a way that suits the atmosphere perfectly.

It’s All About The Sound

While the art direction is amazing, it is worth mentioning that the sound design is just as impressive.

The eerie atmosphere is only accentuated by the superb audio throughout every aspect of the game. From the heavy footsteps of the traveler to the futuristic noises coming from certain mechanics, all the way to the musical score, which is ambient, haunting, and even exhilarating at times. What most impressed me about the audio was that this game knew when to be silent… sometimes, silence is more powerful than anything else.

There is a reason Bloober Team strongly recommends playing with a headset. While I thought my 5.1 surround setup was already impressive, slipping on a headset amplified the experience to an entirely new level. Seriously, play this game with a headset. It will spook you in ways you will not forget.

Technical Performance On High-End PC (Concerns)

In terms of technical issues on PC, Cronos: The New Dawn had several bugs in my experience and still needs a patch or two. However, nearly all the technical issues I encountered were minor, apart from one cutscene that had audio cutting out. Thankfully, Bloober Team is aware of all the issues I faced and is actively working on a patch. So, there is a chance that by the time you get to play Cronos: The New Dawn, these technical bugs will no longer be present.

Now, let’s speak about performance, because I was surprised at how taxing this game is on hardware, especially with Ray Tracing enabled. Including adding traversal stuttering when moving between areas. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Ray Tracing comes at a cost, but for the fairly average graphics in this game, I expected better from my high-end PC.

It’s safe to say that, given I was unable to hit a solid 60fps with Cronos: The New Dawn running at 4K native with max settings and ray tracing, I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed. I was able to achieve a 70ish FPS for most of the game once I turned off ray tracing. The game was at native 4k max settings.

So, I want to be clear: Cronos: The New Dawn is very scalable on PC, with even just one or two settings changed having a massive impact on performance. This is something I would expect to remain true across a wide range of hardware that fits within the game’s system requirements. However, I was left feeling that the game could be better optimized for those of us with high-end hardware.

My PC Specs: AMD 9950X3D, RTX 5090 Founders Edition, and 96GB of DDR5 6000MHz Corsair RAM

My Final Thoughts

From the opening moments of Cronos: The New Dawn, the inspirations that are the driving force behind this survival horror game were clear as day. Cronos didn’t want to be Dead Space, but it aimed to create a new dawn for that type of sci-fi survival horror, and to Bloober Team’s credit, they’ve done just that.

The atmosphere is creepy, the enemies unnerving, and the art direction is disgustingly beautiful in all the right ways. While the story didn’t have me on the edge of my seat, it remained intriguing throughout.

Most important for me with this genre, however, is the gameplay, and the weight of combat, along with the thrill (or terror) of never being sure an enemy is truly dead, is what kept me coming back to Cronos: The New Dawn most of all. For many players, I would simply say… this is the Dead Space successor you’ve been waiting for.

Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Cronos: The New Dawn was provided to us for review purposes by Bloober Team. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.

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