When it wasoriginally revealed that Bloober Team would be remaking Silent Hill 2, one of the most beloved psychological horror games of all time, nobody believed it would work.Blooberwas familiar with horror, sure, butSilent Hill’s subtle and terrifying brand of fear was a far cry from what we’d seen inThe Mediumand Layers of Fear.
Against the odds, Bloober managed to pull it off and successfully dragged Silent Hill 2 into the modern era with aremake that was both remarkably faithful to the original’s tone and brave with its refined mechanics. Even with that success, it was easy to believe that Silent Hill 2 worked so wellbecause it had such a legendary framework to build off of. The winning recipe was already there; Bloober just spiced up the ingredients.
If you somehow still have doubts about how far Bloober has come in the world of horror, thenits latest original game, Cronos: The New Dawn, is here to squash them for good. I wasn’t initially sold on Cronos when the game was first revealed, but after playing it for two hours and walking away desperate for more, it’s crystal clear that Bloober is at its most confident and creative.
Such Is Our Mission
As a lifelong fan of survival horror, I knewCronos: The New Dawnhad potential, but I didn’t expect to be dragged into its world and characters so quickly. Cronos puts you in the trembling boots of The Traveler, a member of a strange group known as The Collective, who are trying to survive a nightmare full of squishy monsters known as Orphans. The Traveller’s missionis to find a way to travel back in time to 1980s Poland and extract the souls of key figures, bringing them back to the future where (or when) they can hopefully start rebuilding the fractured world.
Considering the Traveler’s painfully generic name and faceless design that had me assuming she was just a blank slate for the player, I was surprised by how interesting she becomes as the story finds its feet. Initially, she came across almost like a robot, repeating data logs to herself and having no reaction to the twisted environments around them, but by the end of my preview, she’d developed into a person who’s just as terrified as the player.
It’s not just the Traveller who surprised me when it comes to Cronos’ worldbuilding, as the alternate history vision of Poland that Cronos calls home also excels. What might just look like an average ruined sci-fi world is actually chock-full of Polish history, while the alternate timeline is one I’m curious to see expanded upon as things progress.
As part of our preview,we were able to visit Tadeusz Sendzimir Steelworks, a key location in the game. It’s clear from being there just how much effort Bloober has put in.
“Whatever You Do, Don’t Let Them Merge”
Even as I found myself getting further immersed in the world of Cronos, that key piece of advice from Bloober Team kept looping in my head. At its core, The New Dawn is a survival horror experience reminiscent ofResident Evil, Silent Hill, andDead Space; an apt comparison considering its focus on stressful resource management, occasional environmental puzzles and exploration, and even a hefty stomp that made me feel like I was back on the Ishimura.
All of those survival horror staples are here as you’d expect, and they all work together in tandem for a consistently tense experience that is familiar yet frightening.Cronos isn’t quite as horror-focused as Silent Hill 2and is more action-packed than most of its contemporaries, but it’s still not short of unexpected scares and moments that had my hands sweating.
The New Dawn does a good job of replicating what has worked for similar games in the genre, but there’s also a surprising amount of new features that help it stand out. Orphans are more powerful than they appear and make combat encounters much harder than I expected (which is always a good thing when it comes to survival horror), but it’s effectively balanced by the Traveler being able to charge each shot from their gun to make it hit even harder, at the cost of being left vulnerable.
That might seem like a simple tweak, but charging shots adds another strategic layer to the already fast-paced combat that I dug a lot once I’d gotten used to it. The biggest and scariest unique mechanic of the bunch, however, is the merging of foes that I hinted at earlier, which turns enemies from creepy cannon fodder into dangerous monsters that can murder you in seconds.
Seriously, Don’t Let Them Merge
Orphans might seem like fairly simplistic threats to deal with at first, but when any of them are killed, they essentially turn into a resource for any remaining enemies to absorb and become more powerful. Once merged, the fleshy monsters regain their health and become stronger, sometimes even picking up the traits of special Orphans, like being able to spit out acid.
As well as being truly disgusting thanks to all of the sinewy flesh and squishy noises, merged Orphans completely change how Cronos plays. Since the only way merging can be stopped is with a flamethrower that’s extremely limited in use, you’re able to’t just run around shooting everything in sight until you eventually emerge victorious.
You have to carefully consider each Orphan you kill, whether to use your flamethrower to help take down an enemy or burn a body and prevent stronger foes, and whether you even have enough resources to deal with everything that’s being chucked at you without resorting to throwing hands.
If merging sounds too scary for you, Cronos lightens the mood a bit with collectible cats that give you rewards. Here’s hoping they don’t end up merging at some point, too…
Just like how Dead Space (which is what I’d say Cronos feels the closest to) made its mark with severing limbs from its infected enemies,merging feels like the ace up New Dawn’s sleeve. I’m intrigued to see how long it remains a novel feature and if it’ll ever get too much when Orphan encounters aren’t so few and far between.
As convincing as my time with Cronos was, merging wasn’t the only question mark I was left with, as two of its big features are ones I sadly didn’t get to see. My demo ended just as The Traveler went back in time, meaning I didn’t get to experience how exactly that plays out and how different the past setting is in terms of tone and mechanics. I also didn’t see what is arguably its most interesting mechanic - the ability to extract souls,which is apparently a big part of the narrative.
Even though I’m still in the dark about Cronos: The New Dawn in a few key areas, the two hours I spent with it were more than enough to secure both my confidence and excitement in Bloober’s latest IP. Silent Hill 2 might have shown that Bloober can breathe new life into a classic, but Cronos looks like it’ll prove it can make one all its own.
