Cronos: The New Dawn review – survival horror is dead on arrival

PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch 2; Bloober Team
An intriguing setup sees an unnamed protagonist time-travel to discover the origins of a devastating outbreak, but a stingy inventory and one-sided battles lead to frustration

Bloober Team, the Polish developer behind 2021's hugely underrated psycho-thriller The Medium and last year's excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, clearly understands that there is an established, almost comforting rhythm to survival horror games. It's baffling, then, to see this latest game excel in so many areas while failing spectacularly on several of the genre's most basic tenets.

You play an unnamed traveller, the latest of many, sent to gather information about a devastating outbreak that transformed the citizens of a town called New Dawn into the sort of misshapen monsters that have become the staple of sci-fi-adjacent survival horror: contorted of limb, long of fang, and ample of slobber. As you explore the stark, often beautifully devastated aftermath of the outbreak, you search for places where you can travel back through time to when all hell was breaking loose, extracting persons of interest who may shed light on the disaster. A slow-burn story is revealed through the usual assortment of voice notes, missives and grim environmental clues (often, as is de rigueur, daubed in blood on walls).