One year after Bloober Team proved to the gaming world it could comfortably handle a big horror project like the Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos: The New Dawn marks the studio’s love-letter to the games that directly inspired it – perhaps to a fault. With a bit of Dead Space, Resident Evil and Silent Hill thrown into the mix, Cronos will feel right at home for thrill-seekers looking for a chilling, atmospheric third-person survival horror that checks a lot of boxes but at the same time does very little to stand out from that crowd.



The premise for Cronos: The New Dawn is pretty compelling. Players assume the role of the Traveller, an agent who works for a shadowy organisation called the Collective. Trudging through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the Traveller encounters monsters called “Orphans”, once humans that were morphed following a cataclysmic event called the Change. Thanks to some time-travel shenanigans, she must solve a long-standing mystery while navigating the horrors brought about by the catastrophe.



First and foremost, Cronos: The New Dawn builds an intriguing mystery at its core, driven by a strong protagonist in the Traveller. Most of the narrative is unravelled through details found in the environments – scattered notes, audio tapes, journals and more. Cronos never spells out the answers you’re so desperately looking for, but it trusts players to piece together events while slowly drip-feeding you enough information to keep you invested. There’s a lot of potential for great world-building that I hope gets expanded upon a sequel because The New Dawn – as the title suggests – feels like a young franchise just getting started.

With a bit of Dead Space, Resident Evil and Silent Hill thrown into the mix, Cronos will feel right at home for thrill-seekers looking for a chilling, atmospheric third-person survival horror.

Cronos: The New Dawn is definitely cut from the same cloth as Dead Space. Like the various games that it pays homage to, the gameplay takes place from an over-the-shoulder perspective with combat remarkably similar to games like Resident Evil or Silent Hill. You’re constantly pinching ammo as you explore an apocalyptic hellscape riddled with some clever environmental storytelling that you can easily miss if you rush through areas. Cronos wants players to take their time going off the beaten path, even if you might run into death along the way. And run into death, you probably will.



One aspect of the game that I didn’t expect to like as much as I did was the Traveller herself. Initially, she might come off as a bit cold, stoic and one-note, but the further you progress, the more you begin to peel away at her layers (and sanity) as things escalate. The Traveller, like Samus Aren who you can favourably compare her to, makes notes of her surroundings and gives you some vital context to the plot. Most importantly, it’s easier to connect with her this way because you’ll quite often feel the same way about a certain moment – fear, confusion, dread, and a bit of “nope” for good measure.

When Cronos: The New Dawn focuses on building its horror elements, it’s incredibly effective. Bloober Team clearly learned a lot from making Silent Hill 2 because you’ll run into plenty of scenarios where the atmosphere feels like it’s crushing or suffocating you. It constantly kept me on my toes and I was surprised to play a horror game in 2025 that, like last year’s remake, actually made me feel uneasy and scared. This is helped by the fact that the Orphans are pretty terrifying – at least in the first few hours. Once the scare factor wears off, the monsters unfortunately become more of an annoyance in the second half of the game and a lack of enemy variety doesn’t help its case either.



Most of Cronos’ gameplay is built on the foundation of classic survival horror games before it – a decent mixture of combat, puzzle-solving and ammo-pinching (which we’ll get to in a bit). The Traveller comes equipped with a standard pistol at the beginning but you’ll eventually gain access to shotguns, rocket launchers and other weapons as you progress. Shooting feels satisfying but a little underwhelming as the combat lacks that extra oomph to make it feel as punchy or refined as something like Dead Space. Shots will land with a lovely kick as you recoil, but it wears a bit thin after a while.

When Cronos: The New Dawn focuses on building its horror elements, it’s incredibly effective.

Ammunition is usually scarce in survival horror games, forcing you to take your shots wisely and reserve ammo as much as possible, but Cronos maybe takes it a step too far in some instances. I was pinching ammo until the very last bullet or completely running out in the middle of a tricky encounter, forcing me to backtrack or reset a fight so I could line up deadlier headshots. It becomes less frustrating as you unlock more weapon options but you’ll feel pretty powerless quite often – maybe that’s the point, but not in the most fun way all the time.



Cronos is severely lacking in the originality department. It wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve but often runs into the risk of feeling a bit too derivative. Whereas games like Dead Space or Resident Evil 4 pushed survival horror forward and put their own definitive spins on the genre (hell, you could argue Bloober Team’s own Silent Hill 2 remake did this as well), Cronos tends to play the formula very safe. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a well-designed game in every aspect that survival horror enthusiasts will appreciate, but it’s not going to surprise you either or do anything special to shake things up.

It wears its inspirations proudly on its sleeve but often runs into the risk of feeling a bit too derivative.

Cronos: The New Dawn’s greatest strength is its presentation. Even on Nintendo Switch 2, the visuals and art direction are outstanding. Environments look incredible and add to the confined, claustrophobic intensity of the moment-to-moment tension and unexpected bursts of action. Bloober Team absolutely nailed the atmosphere, a crucial ingredient to creating a fantastic survival horror experience, in my opinion. It very much reminded me of the Dead Space remake at times and the excellent work EA Motive did there with its haunting, dense atmospherics that elevate the horror.



On a technical level, though, this is where Cronos: The New Dawn hits a few snags on the Switch 2 version. For the most part, I’d say Bloober Team did a pretty good job porting it over to Nintendo’s new hardware and it looks especially magnificent and vivid while playing in handheld mode. However, some visual cutbacks had to be made and this hurts the NPCs the most. Most of the models (apart from the Traveller who looks great) don’t look very good on Switch 2, unfortunately, lacking detail or the same expressiveness you’d find on other platforms. I also ran into texture pop-ins that pulled me out of the experience a few times. With a few patches, I’m sure things could be smoothed out over time but as it stands, the Switch 2 version maybe isn’t the best way to play Cronos right now. I’d recommend picking up the visually superior PS5 or Xbox Series versions instead.

Cronos: The New Dawn is a tense, atmospheric survival horror that thrives on its strong protagonist, amazing presentation, and familiar gameplay. Fans of Dead Space and Resident Evil will find a lot to love with Bloober Team’s well-crafted homage to the horror classics. Sadly, it doesn’t leave its own distinct mark on the genre as it borrows a bit too heavily from its inspirations. There’s potential for a sequel to take the story and gameplay in interesting new directions but as it stands, The New Dawn is a good time that kind of falls short of being a great time.

Nintendo Switch 2 Review code provided by Bloober Team | Cronos: The New Dawn is available to purchase on PS5 at Nexus Hub for R1,399