Introduced simply days after the launch of their glorious Silent Hill 2 remake final yr, Cronos: The New Daybreak was a departure from a lot of Bloober Crew’s earlier work, with a heavier deal with fight and a considerably futuristic setting, leaving horror followers curious as to how the undertaking would form up.
Cronos had already been in growth since 2021, regardless of not being introduced till 2024, so although it appeared prefer it got here out of nowhere after the SH2 launch, it’s a full-length horror expertise. We’ll be diving in deep to see what it’s all about and the way it stacks as much as its friends and its influences.
Simply to get it out of the best way early, Cronos pulls closely from its influences, essentially the most distinguished of which might be the Lifeless House sequence and the later Resident Evil video games (5, Revelations 2, remakes,) amongst many others.
Whereas it pulls closely from these video games, it does nonetheless handle to have some voice of its personal with some stand-out fight mechanics in addition to utilizing a sure artwork model that’s harking back to Bloober’s earlier sport The Medium. This consists of the inclusion of allegory or reference for the historical past of Poland and its structure, with the artwork of Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński closely blended in. Cronos additionally mixes in a heavy physique horror ingredient with a mixture of issues just like the Alien sequence, John Carpenter’s The Factor, H.R. Giger, and some others relating to these components.
What it accomplishes with its artwork and sound design is solely chic in most areas, with insane element within the visible artwork components, particularly in its environments and vistas main you thru its world. The sport is all the time supplying you with one thing thrilling or terrifying to take a look at and discover. The scattering of potentially-dead our bodies of enemies are always strewn in regards to the world, and also you by no means know which of them will spring to life at simply the proper second, and the oozing, undulating biomass that populates a lot of the world always seems to be alive and skin-crawling as you discover, with all kinds of nasty surprises ready round each nook.
The sound design is extraordinarily oppressive and foreboding, and will get extremely tense and visceral when you find yourself in fight encounters, making many of the expertise have an intense quantity of stress, dread, and concern all through. Nonetheless, the music rating throughout most of the narrative scenes and the overall exploration/save room music leans in the direction of a Eighties gritty synth sound that doesn’t fairly match the aesthetics or temper of the sport, leaving lots of these scenes feeling misplaced.
Transferring on to the gameplay, Cronos performs loads like a Lifeless House or over-the-shoulder Resident Evil sport on the floor, however with some significantly distinctive fight mechanics that separate it from its influences. It options an excellent sense of weight and visceral fury to it. The overall exploration is filled with comparatively enjoyable traversal puzzles and merchandise retrieval, as most video games of its model are, even when backtracking rears its head just a few instances and among the environments begin to really feel a little bit same-y at a sure level.
In relation to the fight, there’s loads to speak about, because you’ll be doing a hell of lots of it, and it’ll take up quantity of your time spent with the sport. Crucial factor to say in regards to the fight is that I’ve little question in saying that Cronos is likely one of the hardest motion horror video games you’ll ever play. The fight is punishingly troublesome and by no means lets up, and when coupled with the very scarce quantity of assets you might have at your disposal, this sport requires a mastery of the fight system early on, simply to get previous the early encounters.
Previous the early encounters, it simply progressively retains getting tougher because it goes till the very finish of the sport. A primary playthrough of Cronos will really feel like taking part in every other motion horror sport on the best issue, and this can be a barrier for enjoyment for a lot of gamers, since there aren’t any selectable issue choices when beginning a brand new sport.
Throughout the realm of fight, you’re always juggling your useful resource administration and attempting to get essentially the most out of what little ammo you might have, whereas additionally attempting to not get hit by the onslaught of enemies you’ll typically be confronted with concurrently. That is whilst you’re additionally actively attempting to cease the enemies from merging with useless our bodies on the ground and changing into extra highly effective and more durable to kill within the course of. This makes the fight extraordinarily frantic and makes time of the essence, for the reason that extra you’re taking your time attempting to play defensively and the much less consideration you pay to what each enemy is doing, the extra probability you’ll need to spend much more assets attempting to kill them after they merge.
For some time, this loop and excessive issue of fight can result in a satisfying studying curve as soon as sure issues lastly begin clicking for you, however because it by no means stops ramping up that studying curve, the entire sport simply finally ends up feeling like an unbalanced, uphill battle, which may result in period of time feeling wasted for a lot of. Since there’s no selectable issue ranges for the sport, this could be a hurdle for a lot of gamers leaping into the sport.
Fortunately, there’s a fairly beneficiant auto-save system that can save your sport earlier than most main encounters, however the brutal issue will make it a necessity to be re-loading these saves fairly typically to get previous the rougher encounters. When 2-3 hits from any enemy is sufficient to take you down (even with well being upgrades) there’s lots of trial and error required to get by means of nearly all of the fights.
The navigation outdoors fight normally isn’t too troublesome, regardless of not having a correct map system, as you’ll need to depend on an on-screen compass with waypoints to search out your method round as a substitute. This works properly for essentially the most half, however it may be simple to get circled in sure areas.
Transferring on from the gameplay, we are able to discuss in regards to the narrative, which typically felt like a failure regardless of having some nice visible components to construct the world and its characters, in addition to some good voice appearing to present them life. The writing and pacing simply feels far too slovenly and imprecise to essentially drive residence a lot emotional resonance or that means, and tends to meander with practically poetic ranges of prose, but has little or no to floor it or give that means to the occasions of the story fairly often.
There are moments of poignance and readability within the dialogue right here and there on the subject of AI and machines, artwork being tied to the human expertise, and different related subjects, however it’s few and much between, typically not giving a lot motivation to maintain your self invested in taking part in by means of the sport’s fairly lengthy size and excessive stage of issue. The narrative typically felt pretty trope-filled and spinoff for many of its size, feeling like dozens of different sci-fi and post-apocalyptic tales we’ve seen many instances earlier than. It isn’t till just a few of the twists in the direction of the tip of the sport that a lot of the particular story is revealed, and by then, I simply felt bored with attempting to observe the tiny threads of story that had been making an attempt to tie issues collectively.
The ingredient of attempting to work in little touches of Polish historical past and aesthetic into the narrative felt very free at greatest, and didn’t contribute in a significant method other than constructing the setting. Pretty typical sci-fi subjects together with many different narrative subjects like pandemics, suicide, loneliness, and others had been tried to be labored into the story, however they not often got here by means of in ways in which felt distinctive among the many tons of different similarly-themed video games and flicks over time.
As talked about earlier than, Cronos will possible be a prolonged, practically 20-hour expertise for many gamers, between watching all of the cinematics and dialogue choices and the fixed trial-and-error of fight and useful resource administration, and it’s a very long time to stretch out a story that doesn’t have loads to say, which additionally provides to the tedium and tiring nature of a lot of the gameplay. It makes the pacing of the sport really feel a little bit nearer to RPG territory (assume: Fallout) than most motion horror video games, and it seems like a mismatch for what these sorts of video games normally attempt to accomplish, which is a bit jarring of a mixture.
On the finish of the day, Cronos has lots of missteps that maintain it again from its potential, the place it’s incredible audiovisual presentation and fascinating fight are subverted by a lackluster narrative, sluggish pacing, and massively unbalanced issue, making the general package deal simply merely good, however not nice.
I actually needed to take pleasure in Bloober’s first unique IP with a full-fledged fight system greater than I did, however I’ve hope they’ll be capable to discover motion horror once more later, having realized a bit about methods to steadiness and tempo issues out a little bit higher.
(7.5 / 10)
(7.5 / 10)Good
Depend on Horror Evaluate Rating Information
A PS5 evaluation copy was supplied by the writer.
