Cronos: The New Dawn Gets Native Steam Deck Build For Increased Performance

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Cronos: The New Dawn is by far one of my favorite horror games out right now. It reeks of Dead Space, while having an intriguing story, thrilling gameplay, and gorgeous sci-fi visuals. I mentioned all of this in my review, and I discussed how well the game performs in general. However, there was a new update today that brought with it a native Steam Deck build, which should make the experience on the go even better.

You can save 20% by buying Cronos: The New Dawn over on Fanatical for $47.99.

This was initially announced over on Twitter/X by the official Cronos: The New Dawn account. Here, they mention there's a new native Steam Deck build that has been released to boost the game's performance:

I was actually a bit surprised by this, considering the game did release with a native Linux build. But, I do love the game, so I was eager to try it out and see what has changed and if the experience has actually gotten any better. After a little bit of testing, I would say it's hard to tell.

Before getting into the game, I checked the SteamDB update history, and we can see that the compatibility has changed from Proton 10 to native, which means it will now default to the Linux version of the game. Going back a few days further, it seems there were some changes that reduced the file size for both the Linux and Windows versions of the games.

Then, I went to testing, and I was ready to see what had changed. I started off by resetting the settings to the game's default, and it tanked the framerate into the 10s. It resorted to a custom setup, but without the SteamDeck=0 %command% launch option, we can't see what has changed. Then, I moved the quality preset to Low instead of Very Low, so I could see whether or not we could move up from that Very Low preset, but it also kept performance low, hovering around 15 - 17 FPS.

So, it seems like we haven't had enough optimizations to increase the graphical quality, but I wanted to see if the Very Low preset would perform better than its Windows counterpart. So, I tested it, and it seems as though we do actually have some performance improvements. From what I have seen so far in my limited testing, we have about a 10% performance increase over the Windows version. Specifically, standing still in one area goes from 40 FPS on the Windows build to 44 FPS on the Linux build.

While this is definitely not enough to heavily change the visuals, it is enough to save a little bit more on battery life and stabilize the tougher-to-run areas. I never saw drops below 27 or 28 FPS, so this extra overhead should be enough to make it almost completely stable at all times. This seems to be consistent throughout the experience from what I have tested so far. Keep in mind that different areas may still have issues, but overall, I do see the improvement. We will still need a 30 FPS lock and Very Low settings though, so it's good to keep that in mind.

I am overjoyed to see Bloober Team continuing to work on the game and make sure it is as great as it can be on the Steam Deck. This may not be an insane performance increase, but it still does help and is a welcome change. The game always had a Linux version, but I wouldn't be surprised if enough work has been put in to make it a better option than using Proton with Windows. So, if you have been on the fence about getting Cronos: The New Dawn for your Steam Deck, this should help a lot and make the decision much easier.

Cronos: The New Dawn can be purchased on Steam for $59.99, but if you want to save some money, you can get it on Fanatical right now for $47.99.

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