Cronos: The New Dawn is a third-person survival horror game from Bloober Team, set to drop on September 5, 2025. It’s a standalone title, not part of any franchise, and it’s all about tactical combat, limited resources, and shifting between two timelines to stay alive.
Cronos: The New Dawn Story
You play as a Traveler, sent back by a group called the Collective to pull survivors out of the past before something called “The Change” turns them into monsters. You'll need not only to shoot but also to burn the bodies of fallen enemies, or they’ll come back stronger, fused with whatever’s nearby. Fire’s your friend here, and so is good planning.
Fight Smart or Die Fast
The combat is brutal, using melee, pistols, and shotguns only, and you can’t waste a single bullet. Healing items are rare, and there’s no easy mode. One punishing playthrough is all you get. Every decision matters, and mistakes stick with you.
Jump Between Two Worlds
One minute you’re in a brutalist 1980s Kraków. The next, a ruined future where humanity barely exists. Using time rifts, you’ll switch between timelines to solve puzzles, open paths, and uncover what went wrong.
The Harvester, Essences, and the Cost of Power
You’ve got a tool called the Harvester. It lets you rip Essences from people in the past and use them in the future to boost your abilities. Sounds great, until the hallucinations and glitches kick in. Those buffs come with side effects, and the deeper you go, the weirder things get.
Story and Vibe
If you're into Alien, The Thing, Dead Space, 12 Monkeys, or Dark, this is your zone.
Bloober Team calls it a “love letter to survival horror,” saying they’ve built a “strange combination” where different parts of the game evoke different inspirations: some areas feel like Silent Hill, others like Resident Evil or Dead Space. But the real twist is the merge system: Bloober’s own mechanic that flips everything on its head and adds a layer no classic ever tried.
The setting pulls from the heavy atmosphere of Nowa Huta’s brutalist architecture, and the soundtrack blends eerie synths with haunting folk vocals. It’s tense, bleak, and soaked in dread from the first minute.
Early Reception
The game isn’t out yet, but early previews are calling it “most oppressive game worlds.” Reviewers are digging the atmosphere, the brutal gameplay, and how time travel actually ties into the mechanics, not just the story. It’s shaping up to be one of 2025’s most interesting horror releases.
You may like it because:
- Survival horror where every decision matters
- Time travel that actually changes how you play
- challenging single-player game with no safety nets
- Dark, retro-futuristic settings with Eastern European style
