Bloober Team went into Cronos: The New Dawn with clear ambition.
After years of building its name with Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and The Medium, and then proving its technical chops with the Silent Hill 2 remake, this was supposed to be its big step forward.
On the surface, the studio did a lot right. The game plunges players into a nightmarish version of Poland straddling two eras: the bleak ruins of the future and the early 1980s, an era plagued by both political turmoil and a devastating outbreak.
The story places you in the shell of the Traveler, a manufactured entity designed to piece together the events behind the Change.
The blend of psychological horror, Soviet ruins, and grotesque monsters creates something original.
The problem is that the central time-travel mechanic, the very hook that could have elevated Cronos, is left frustratingly underdeveloped.
How Do the Time Rifts Actually Work?
The glowing rifts stand out as they allow players to cross timelines, and entering them causes rubble to rebuild, walkways to restore, and landscapes to flow from one period into another.
These moments are spectacular to look at, but their role in gameplay rarely goes beyond acting as switches.
You shoot the rift with an alternate fire mode, the world transforms, and you move forward.
The mechanic stops functioning as a system to master and ends up being little more than eye candy.
Most puzzles built around it feel basic—like spawning a bridge in one spot or dropping in a barrel to blow up.
The promise of bending two timelines against each other to create inventive solutions is never realized.
Why Doesn’t Combat Take Advantage of Time Travel?
Combat should have been the stage where time manipulation stood out, yet it falters as the Traveler relies on heavy but satisfying weapons, with every fight made tense by scarce health and the lack of a dodge.
Enemies are grotesque and intimidating, with some able to merge into stronger forms if bodies aren’t properly destroyed.
These ideas should raise tension, and they do, but the time-rift mechanic barely factors into fights at all.
At best, you can summon an extra explosive barrel, but that’s a far cry from the potential of aging enemies into dust or freezing them between eras.
Without time powers, combat sticks to basic survival horror shooting.
Does the Narrative Use Time Travel Effectively?
Narratively, Cronos has enough intrigue to pull you along.
The Traveler is a clone among thousands, carrying out orders while gradually uncovering the truth behind the Change.
Scattered logs and dossiers give the story a sharper political edge, with commentary on the failures of communism woven through the setting. Cities are covered in flesh-walls, and apartments are stuck in decay.
However, even here, time travel is mostly a decorative element. The mechanic falls flat because past actions don’t meaningfully shape what comes after.
Without that connective tissue, the game’s most ambitious idea feels detached from its heart.
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
This missed opportunity becomes all the more glaring when you compare it to other games that handled similar concepts.
Singularity used time powers in puzzles and combat by aging structures and reversing enemies.
Cronos hints at wanting to follow that path, but stops short. Imagine if boss battles required players to align rifts across eras to expose weak points, or if survival demanded rewinding an environment mid-fight to create cover.
Rifts stay in the background and rarely affect the outcome of a fight or puzzle. That’s not to say Cronos is without merit.
Its art direction is suffocating in the best way, combat weapons feel powerful, and the sense of atmosphere is undeniable.
The game even includes a central hub between missions, where you’ll find a quirky ally and a room full of cats to pet.
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