Cronos: The New Dawn Proves Bloober Team Hasn't Lost Its Step - GDC 2025

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I didn’t mean to save some of the best appointments I had at GDC for last, but it turns out I did. There were two specifically that blew my mind right at the end and essentially tie as my favorites. The co-op heisting sci-fi Den of Wolves was the first game that stunned me, thanks to its gorgeous visuals and high-octane gameplay. The other is Bloober Team’s newest game, Cronos: The New Dawn. As a fan of third-person horror games, I was so excited to see how Cronos is coming along and if it lives up to the hype I’ve had for it so far, and from what I saw, I would say it does.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Bloober’s work, ever since Layers of Fear was released. I saw how they handle atmospheric horror, and they did a great job including that here. The world is dark and haunting, with a gorgeous mix of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic scenes. In my hands-off gameplay demo, I got to watch as we walked through a devastatingly demolished city in Poland in our hi-tech suit, looking for time anomalies. We were there to find these anomalies to temporarily go back in time and save citizens to help deal with this cataclysmic event.

The entire time, the atmosphere was tense and creepy, putting me on edge as I watched what would happen next with bated breath. The team is doing a great job cultivating a world that feels alive, even when everything around us so obviously dead. However, that’s where I was wrong again.

Cronos’ enemies are something else and exceeded my expectations. I was anticipating a more general survival horror experience with a variety of enemies with grotesque designs, but what Bloober showed me was so much more unique. Sure, the monsters still had grotesque designs, but their behavior and abilities were on another level.

You have to be careful with your resources and pick and choose how you want to tackle the enemies coming at you while still retaining as much ammo as you can, and enemies can be semi-hard to kill. However, the real worry is not how to kill the enemies, it’s what to do with their bodies when they die. These monsters can find bodies of their fallen brethren and absorb them to become stronger and gain new abilities. Depending on the type of monster absorbed, they can morph into devastating beings.

They can evolve twice, and the more powerful they are, the better loot you can get from them, but they are also significantly harder to kill. Weighing your options is going to be really important here, and while you can use the environment and explosions to help, it may not be worth it.

The only way to destroy these dead bodies is with fire, and we can craft more canisters (and health packs) with the crafting system. It looks a bit on the lighter end, not super detailed or in-depth, but quick and simple to get the items you need without worry. However, with resources being more scarce, you will have to make some important decisions and prioritize what you need to make sure you survive. Some of these dead bodies could also be monsters who are still alive and come to attack once provoked, so keeping full awareness of your surroundings will be important.

From the post apocalyptic sci-fi premise to the gorgeously haunting world and heart pounding combat, Cronos: The New Dawn is shaping up to be another success story for Bloober Team. It looks like a great, horrific time that will keep me on the edge of my seat throughout. I can’t wait to see what the full game will look like, and just how creepy the experience will be. Hopefully, it will run on the Steam Deck, but with how intense the game is, the end result is still up in the air.

Cronos: The New Dawn can currently be wishlisted on Steam.

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