The Premise
Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober’s take on the Dead Space formula: a third-person, sci-fi survival horror game with a heavy atmosphere, dark corridors, and mutated monstrosities lurking around every corner. If you’ve seen the trailers, you probably caught the strong DeadSpace vibe. But we've been through this before…. remember Callisto Protocol…. Well where The Callisto Protocol missed the mark, Cronos at least lands some of its punches.
It’s not revolutionary, but it doesn’t crash and burn either.
Story
You play as The Traveler, a replaceable agent awoken in a post-apocalyptic world where a deadly virus has wiped out humanity. Your task? Use time-travel tech to extract the essence of key individuals before they died and upload that knowledge into a central terminal with the hope of one day preventing the outbreak altogether.
At first, the story is intriguing. But around the 12-hour mark, it veers into something else… and then in the final 3 hours, it shifts again. What starts as a sci-fi tragedy becomes pseudo-religious, then shifts back into something more personal and grounded. It’s like three different stories stitched together with time-travel duct tape.
The biggest issue is that for most of the game, you aren’t emotionally invested. You’re just “The Traveler.” Interchangeable. Disconnected. It’s only in the final few hours that the game finally gives you something personal, something real. But it comes far too late.
If they'd sprinkled those emotional beats throughout the game, the story could’ve hit much harder.
Gameplay
Cronos borrows heavily from Dead Space, but doesn’t refine it. Movement feels sluggish. Combat lacks weight. And while there’s limb dismemberment, it doesn’t have the same punch. Shooting enemies in the leg and stomping them just feels slow and ineffective.
Resource management is technically here, but there are design issues:
Your upgrade choices lock you in too early. If you upgrade your first few weapons, you’ll never switch, there’s no point.
Inventory space is ridiculously tight. You’re forced to upgrade it, sacrificing all other options. Want to carry a second gun? A grenade? Quest items? Too bad, max out that inventory or suffer.
Enemies aren’t scary. They’re just… there. You can outrun everything. There’s no sneaking, no real threat. Just run around.
There’s also a lack of puzzle-solving or exploration. The game is linear, and most of the side content is optional.
Graphics & Sound
This is where Cronos shines.
Bloober’s art team delivered a gritty, haunting, post-apocalyptic world filled with environmental storytelling. You’ll find notes on the ground, messages on the wall that auto-translate, and optional side stories told purely through set design. One short story about a traveler and a child…. hits harder than most of the main plot.
When you pair this with the sound design - it REALLY shines. The ambiance keeps you tense: metal creaking, wind moaning, indistinct whispers. Music swells when it needs to: from eerie synths to unsettling choral tracks. But otherwise stays minimal to let the atmosphere breathe.
It’s also surprisingly well-optimized, running smoothly across all platforms, with detailed textures and no major bugs or performance issues on PC. Digital Foundry went far deeper into - check them out if you want to know more!
Final Verdict
So… Is It Worth Your Time?
A full playthrough took me 17 hours, and I had no real desire to go back. It’s not a bad game, it’s just one that almost lives up to its potential. With tighter pacing, more meaningful gameplay choices, and stronger emotional storytelling earlier on, this could’ve been a standout.
At $60, I’d say wait.
But if you see it on sale for $30–40, this is definitely worth checking out.
It’s not Dead Space, but it tries — and that counts for something.
The Premise
Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober’s take on the Dead Space formula: a third-person, sci-fi survival horror game with a heavy atmosphere, dark corridors, and mutated monstrosities lurking around every corner. If you’ve seen the trailers, you probably caught the strong DeadSpace vibe. But we've been through this before…. remember Callisto Protocol…. Well where The Callisto Protocol missed the mark, Cronos at least lands some of its punches.
It’s not revolutionary, but it doesn’t crash and burn either.
Story
You play as The Traveler, a replaceable agent awoken in a post-apocalyptic world where a deadly virus has wiped out humanity. Your task? Use time-travel tech to extract the essence of key individuals before they died and upload that knowledge into a central terminal with the hope of one day preventing the outbreak altogether.
At first, the story is intriguing. But around the 12-hour mark, it veers into something else… and then in the final 3 hours, it shifts again. What starts as a sci-fi tragedy becomes pseudo-religious, then shifts back into something more personal and grounded. It’s like three different stories stitched together with time-travel duct tape.
The biggest issue is that for most of the game, you aren’t emotionally invested. You’re just “The Traveler.” Interchangeable. Disconnected. It’s only in the final few hours that the game finally gives you something personal, something real. But it comes far too late.
If they'd sprinkled those emotional beats throughout the game, the story could’ve hit much harder.
Gameplay
Cronos borrows heavily from Dead Space, but doesn’t refine it. Movement feels sluggish. Combat lacks weight. And while there’s limb dismemberment, it doesn’t have the same punch. Shooting enemies in the leg and stomping them just feels slow and ineffective.
Resource management is technically here, but there are design issues:
Your upgrade choices lock you in too early. If you upgrade your first few weapons, you’ll never switch, there’s no point.
Inventory space is ridiculously tight. You’re forced to upgrade it, sacrificing all other options. Want to carry a second gun? A grenade? Quest items? Too bad, max out that inventory or suffer.
Enemies aren’t scary. They’re just… there. You can outrun everything. There’s no sneaking, no real threat. Just run around.
There’s also a lack of puzzle-solving or exploration. The game is linear, and most of the side content is optional.
Graphics & Sound
This is where Cronos shines.
Bloober’s art team delivered a gritty, haunting, post-apocalyptic world filled with environmental storytelling. You’ll find notes on the ground, messages on the wall that auto-translate, and optional side stories told purely through set design. One short story about a traveler and a child…. hits harder than most of the main plot.
When you pair this with the sound design - it REALLY shines. The ambiance keeps you tense: metal creaking, wind moaning, indistinct whispers. Music swells when it needs to: from eerie synths to unsettling choral tracks. But otherwise stays minimal to let the atmosphere breathe.
It’s also surprisingly well-optimized, running smoothly across all platforms, with detailed textures and no major bugs or performance issues on PC. Digital Foundry went far deeper into - check them out if you want to know more!
Final Verdict
So… Is It Worth Your Time?
A full playthrough took me 17 hours, and I had no real desire to go back. It’s not a bad game, it’s just one that almost lives up to its potential. With tighter pacing, more meaningful gameplay choices, and stronger emotional storytelling earlier on, this could’ve been a standout.
At $60, I’d say wait.
But if you see it on sale for $30–40, this is definitely worth checking out.
It’s not Dead Space, but it tries — and that counts for something.
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We wanted to play games that were worth our time. From work to family and kids, and other hobbies, game time was scarce. Our goal is to help you know which game to spend your time playing.
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