Bloober Team have been steadily sharpening their skills as horror developers over the last several years; some hits, some misses, and a lot of learning. They have dabbled in their own slow-burning original IP like Layers of Fear, tackling big supernatural brands like Blair Witch, and even last year, finding great success with the remake of Silent Hill 2, their main terrifying inspiration. Of course, that was building on the rock-solid, iconic foundations of the original. With Cronos: The New Dawn, the scare-makers are once again swinging for the fences with an original story, character and universe; and, as far as their own creative projects go, it could very well be the best thing they’ve created.

Cronos: The New Dawn sees you take the role of The Traveler, an ominous character who has arrived in 1980s Nowa Huta, a district of Krakow, Poland. A mysterious cataclysm, called The Change, ruined the world as we know it. An epidemic that would make COVID blush, The Change left behind a desolate, broken planet, with horrifying abominations made of infection, pus and flesh eager to rip apart anybody who gets in their path.

Straight away, it makes for a disgusting setting. Your mission is to search for time rifts, gathering essences of specific VIPs, while trying to survive merciless creatures in a post-apocalyptic landscape. There are some neat sci-fi riffs to the horror formula that make Cronos veer into more philosophical territory than just the expected ‘Why’ or ‘How’ did this happen in the first place. The Traveler, initially unfazed by the mission at hand, grows to have empathy and independent thought about the horrors surrounding them. What starts as a simple task of exploration and recovery evolves into something far more in-depth and considered.

The environment itself does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to storytelling, regardless. It really is a horrible world to wade through; walls are slimy with ooze and body parts protruding from them, buildings are abandoned and dilapidated, warning messages (in Polish) strewn across the walls in blood, corpses of creepy monsters are all over the place, waiting to potentially lurch up at you, and toxic growths explode when you go near them. It’s awful, in the best way; as if walking down a dark corridor isn’t creepy enough in this torn-apart world. Add some fleshy bits into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for a nasty time that keeps you on edge the deeper you go.

Pacing and theming feel like a combo that pays homage to both Dead Space and Resident Evil before it. If you’ve played survival horror titles with missing keys for doors, power generators that need switching back on or fuses that need to be found to unlock mechanical pathways, you get the idea. Rather than the slow-burn dread, though, Cronos: The New Dawn is in more action-focused territory. Jump-scares are not the aim of the game here; that doesn’t mean they don’t happen, but the terror comes from being overwhelmed by bigger, nastier enemies approaching you, rather than shocking you with psychological weirdness.

Of course, psychological weirdness is where Bloober Team cut their teeth, and there are signs of that here, but while some of their other works rely on these shocks a bit too heavily, Cronos shows restraint. Yes, there’s some weird mind-bending stuff that happens as you descend into the madness of the world you find yourself in. But it’s just infrequent enough that it lulls you into a false sense of security. When overdone, these twists and turns could get repetitive. Here, in smaller doses (and mixed in with heavy action and gore), these hallucinations and red herrings are far more effective, and the balance is wonderful to see.

What it feels like, from someone who has played all of Bloober’s previous works, is that they’ve genuinely learned from their time on the Silent Hill 2 remake. The pacing here is solid across the 15-hour adventure, with plenty of dastardly locations to explore as your quest evolves. It’s a little more linear than the map-scribbling of other survival horror titles – I didn’t need to take notes throughout, and there’s no need for an in-game map – and that keeps things moving swiftly. There are additional secrets to find in some of the more labyrinthine areas, sure, but I never felt blocked or forced into it if I was ready to move on.

Some of the real horror in Cronos: The New Dawn comes down to inventory management, something that I always had to keep a close eye on. You only have eight inventory slots to start with, and that includes the guns you’re carrying, healing injectors, additional ammunition, and so on. It even includes any mission-critical objects like keys, so it doesn’t take long at all to fill up. Not purely limited by items you find in the world, you also collect chemicals and metals (thankfully, in a separate bucket) that you can use to craft ammo or healing items on the spot.

Here’s the thing: valuables (to be sold for upgrading your gear) take up slots, too. I also eventually found some bolt cutters that were useful for unlocking hidden rooms filled with useful goodies, but carrying those bolt cutters around at all times also removes a slot in your inventory. It’s a constant burden of being worried that you have enough to survive, but not carrying more than you need to. That said, it’s relatively well-balanced; I found I often had just enough to get through an intense combat encounter, but rarely much more.

That level of inventory management can feel archaic at times, though. For example, if your pockets are full, and you find a health injector, you can’t simply use it on the spot; you have to make space for it by destroying/using something you’re carrying to pick it up. The same goes for guns and ammo; when a weapon is loaded, the ammo doesn’t take up space, but you can’t just ‘pick up and load’ in one action, which is frustrating when you’re in a bind. At the end of the day, I spent a little too much time in my inventory screen, checking it and worrying about it, instead of being focused on the frankly impressive world-building.

You’ll need those moments of safety, as Cronos: The New Dawn does not hold back on challenging combat arenas. There are some basic grunts initially, but they get bigger, meaner, and more varied as you roll on. Importantly, they can merge with the corpses of their fallen monster buddies, absorbing their abilities, gaining more health, or even evolving into something bigger entirely. Part of the battle is taking down your foes, but in larger settings with more beasties, you have to make sure they do not merge, or you’ll be in for a terrible time. You can burn bodies to prevent this, too, and doing this in advance can be helpful if you have the ability, a nice touch of damage control in a truly chaotic setting.

Shooting an enemy in the face feels crunchy and gratifying; stronger guns, like the shotgun, have a considerable heft to them, and much like Dead Space, you can take out their legs to force them to the ground if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Weapons can also all be charged for an extra risk vs. reward level of oomph, if you have the time and space. When combat is at its best, it’s a strategic, glorious dance of blood and guts, darting around, destroying foes before they merge, and balancing your lack of resources carefully, where every shot counts. On the flipside, some combat arenas had me absolutely seething. Dealing with a lack of supplies, tough sections can stray into feeling unfair or frustrating if you’re unprepared, and the linearity of some areas means you can’t exactly go back and farm for ammo or health to get you through. Being stuck in a fight with multiple big infected creatures, with no resources, and no dodge button when they get too close, really took the wind out of my sails more than once.

Cronos: The New Dawn has some other riffs on the horror formula that make it stand out. Anomalies, glowing orbs usually surrounded by pulsing, floating debris, can be used to create new pathways, adding some light puzzling to the adventure. Time oddities like this can be manipulated in combat areas, too, allowing you to respawn explosive barrels to help with crowd control. Some other environmental puzzles make for neat distractions, but aren’t too complex; a conductor is later acquired so you can connect electric currents to unlock doors. It makes for a nice breather from all the violence, though most of these won’t tickle your brain much.

Tapping into the sci-fi further, gravity boots can be used to fly between different landing pads, making for almost platformer-esque moments as you navigate some of the more complicated areas. It would have been nice to see the anomalies, conductor or gravity boots used more under pressure, like to escape from creatures or to discover something really unexpected, but they add to the obscure theatrics. Some of the bosses you’ll come across do have a few more moving parts, but these moments are few and far between, so the otherworldly space objects feel more like diversions than essential tools in your arsenal to pull from.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Cronos: The New Dawn is incredibly polished. Visually impressive, smooth traversal and combat, terrifying audio design where you often hear growling, bubbling or scuttering around every corner, and a dedication to its topsy-turvy narrative, it’s a grotesque thrill-ride that will have you on the edge of your seat with tension. For horror-lovers, you can’t ask for much more than that.