Chronos: Before the Ashes is in a strange place. It started life as a VR game in 2016, now reworked to serve as a purely single-player prequel to Remnant: From the Ashes. It’s traded a fixed camera angle for a conventional, behind-the-player third-person Souls’-like experience. It’s competently made, more accessible than most games in the genre, and offers up enough content for its low price. Unfortunately, when you remove the novelty of playing in VR, it has few stand-out elements in comparison to its peers.

Appreciating the minimalist narrative in Chronos: Before the Ashes relies entirely on your investment in the equally lightweight Remnant lore. You play as yet another human hero from a post-apocalyptic Earth – albeit from a tribe that seemingly forgot to stockpile firearms – sent to a familiar island, with the intent of killing the “dragon”, overlord of “the beasts”. If you’ve already completed Remnant: From the Ashes, you’ll immediately recognise several locations, creatures, and find notes that allude to characters and events in that game. As a prequel, there are some twists and betrayals that won’t come as much of a surprise, but they succeed in fleshing out the lore and provide more context for Remnant: From the Ashes.

Chronos: Before the Ashes both begins and concludes in locations that’ll be familiar to fans of Remnant: From the Ashes.

Shortly after travelling to your first parallel world, an ancient tree will imbue you with your first “dragon power” and direct you to destroy the “guardians” protecting the dragon. It’s a basic plot setup that has you travelling, battling, and puzzling through three distinct realms and defeating a half-dozen major bosses. Not every creature you encounter is hostile in Chronos: Before the Ashes, but the rare friendly NPCs typically provide only a basic quest, a key item or weapon upon completion of that quest, and maybe a tidbit of lore. If you search thoroughly, you’ll also come across the remnants (no joke intended) of prior human expeditions that tie into the plot of Remnant: From the Ashes. With only a minimalist story to hold your attention, the combat, puzzling, levelling mechanics, and environments need to do the heavy lifting.

Combat is both a strength and weakness in Chronos: Before the Ashes. With a focus on classic sword-and-board combat rather than firearms…

Combat is both a strength and weakness in Chronos: Before the Ashes. With a focus on classic sword-and-board combat rather than firearms, offence is based around timing your light and heavy attacks, while blocking, parrying, and rolling make up your defensive abilities. Every element works as it should and feels fluid in action. Unfortunately – and perhaps a consequence of starting life as a VR game – the complexity of both your own and enemy attacks is limited. When you add in the small roster of enemy types and focus on 1-on-1 encounters, it becomes easy to master attacks patterns and subsequent fights begin to feel rote. That said, the move away from boss encounters made artificially difficult by endless minion spawns – see Remnant: From the Ashes – is an instant +1 to the score.


You level up briskly in Chronos: Before the Ashes and, unlike my initial run, you’re better off focussing on one weapon-related attribute and vitality, especially at higher difficulties.

To offset the simplicity of combat, you can crank up the difficulty to punish mistakes harshly. For anyone new to the genre, “casual” is a great choice if you want to focus on exploration and puzzles, while “adventure” feels most balanced given the tone of the game. You could even pick “heroic” if you enjoy dying in 1-2 hits because, thanks to the unique levelling system, you’ll spend more time engaging with the underlying progression mechanics. You see, in Chronos: Before the Ashes, dying chucks you out of the labyrinth for a year before your character returns to the last save crystal (it’s just a respawn animation, in case you were wondering).

…irrespective of your chosen difficulty, Chronos: Before the Ashes will ultimately provide you with the skills and abilities you need to complete the game.

The older you get, the weaker you get and your basic combat-associated attributes – strength, agility, and vitality – become more expensive to level up. However, you also get wiser and the arcane attribute (think elemental resistance) becomes cheaper, while you unlock one of three powerful new traits every decade. As a result, and irrespective of your chosen difficulty, Chronos: Before the Ashes will ultimately provide you with the skills and abilities you need to complete the game. It’s a system I’d love to see as an optional feature in other ‘Souls-like titles, providing greater accessibility to those that need it, while still providing a gradual sense of mastery.


Although the combat may be lacking in complexity compared to its peers, the one-on-one boss fights remain a highlight.

Unfortunately, a big part of the underwhelming combat is the slow rate at which you unlock and upgrade weapons. Chronos: Before the Ashes isn’t a long game, taking maybe 6-7 hours for a single run, but it offers up only a handful of weapons, the vast majority of which are strength-focussed in the opening half. Agility weapons strike fast for low-damage but excel at staggering enemies mid-attack. Strength weapons are slow and require careful timing but do more damage and can break through defences. You can combine these weapons with shields of various sizes (that trade damage reduction for parry speed), but they don’t provide as much tactical variety as other games in the genre.

What it may lack in combat complexity, it makes up for with enjoyable puzzle sequences.

Thankfully, Chronos: Before the Ashes focusses as much on exploration and puzzling as it does on combat. This sets it apart from other ‘Souls-like titles, including Remnant: From the Ashes, which rarely offer mental challenges more taxing than “kill boss to get key for the door”. In Chronos: Before the Ashes, you’ll use a portal to shrink and enlarge yourself, shift water levels, solve riddles, combine items into traversal tools, and navigate colour-coded portals to name a few. What it may lack in combat complexity, it makes up for with enjoyable puzzle sequences (and they were never so obscure I turned to a guide).


Some fun puzzles, particularly in the opening half of the game, are stand-out sequences that set Chronos: Before the Ashes apart from other games in the genre.

When it comes to the presentation, Chronos: Before the Ashes is bound to its VR origins, which means a focus on high framerates over visual flourish. Environments look good, with clean lines and vivid colours, and feel interconnected as you progress. However, they lack a sense of scale as most areas are either enclosed or offer bland vistas. Similarly, movement and attack animations look fluid but don’t convey much impact during fights. Bladed and blunt weapons clash against enemies and shields with minimal visual feedback (other than a decreasing health-bar), while blocks and parries work as intended but don’t always trigger a unique animation.

When it comes to the presentation, Chronos: Before the Ashes is bound to its VR origins, which means a focus on high framerates over visual flourish.

Despite offering up lengthy chunks of gameplay without a single word spoken, the rare voice-work – especially from the narrator and mythical (non-hostile) creatures you encounter – is excellent. Sadly, combat sounds, ambient audio, and the background music often feel subdued, contributing little to the atmosphere if you don’t go in and manually tweak the sound mix. Honestly, if I hadn’t gone digging through the settings, I’d have mistakenly thought the music was only present during the half-dozen boss fights.


As much as I enjoyed the crisp and vibrant visuals, Chronos: Before the Ashes always feels small in scale. You’ll never stumble across any truly awe-inspiring structures or interesting vistas.

Chronos: Before the Ashes has some great moments – like shrinking down to access a key in a locked bookcase, fighting through an underground cave system while keeping an eye on one-hit-kill statues that stalk you when they’re out of your field of vision, or tackling any of the bosses – however, too much of the experience feels by-the-numbers. When you’re in combat, it feels functional but unexceptional. Traversing and puzzling through the environments is a highlight, but the uninspired visuals don’t make the game-world feel distinct. That said, if you’ve tried and failed to play other games in the ‘Souls-like genre, and are looking for an accessible, puzzle-oriented alternative, Chronos: Before the Ashes is a solid choice given its low price point.