Cronos: The New Dawn Promises Brutal Old-School Pandemic Horror – Are You Ready for the Challenge?

Cronos: The New Dawn – A Brutal, Old-School Pandemic Horror

Bloober Team is gearing up to release Cronos: The New Dawn, a tough survival horror game that combines time travel with a nightmarish pandemic setting. If you’re into challenging gameplay and deep sci-fi stories, this one might just be your next obsession.

• A new gameplay trailer showcases tense combat against grotesque, mutated enemies.
• The story involves time travel between two periods: a present devastated by a pandemic and the early days of the outbreak.
• The game features only one difficulty mode—hard mode, the old-school way.
• Influences include Resident Evil, Returnal, and time travel stories like Dark and 12 Monkeys.
• Set in an alternate 1980s Poland under martial law due to a mysterious disease.
• Available in 2025 on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.

Time Travel Meets Pandemic Horror

The gameplay trailer for Cronos: The New Dawn reveals a protagonist decked out in futuristic armor battling twisted, humanlike monsters. These enemies have disturbing tendrils oozing from their bodies, creating a truly unsettling atmosphere.

The story jumps between two timelines: the present, where a horrific pandemic has turned humans into monsters, and the past, when the outbreak was just beginning and people had no idea what was coming. The developers are keeping the plot under wraps to avoid spoilers, promising players a fresh sci-fi narrative experience.

Only One Difficulty Mode – And It’s Tough

During a recent preview, the game’s co-directors, Jacek Zięba and Wojciech Piejko, made it clear that Cronos is designed to be a challenging survival experience. There’s no easy mode—just one hard mode that channels classic difficulty:

“It’s hard mode, in the old-school way.”

“So there’s just the one mode?”

“One mode,” he confirmed. “When you finish the game, we can unlock harder difficulty.”

This means players will need to be strategic and methodical to survive. The game’s enemies can merge into larger, more powerful monsters, so it’s crucial to stop them before they combine. Ammo is scarce, making every shot count.

Story and Setting Rooted in Polish History

Cronos: The New Dawn is set in an alternate version of Poland in the early 1980s, a time when the country was under martial law. However, in the game’s universe, martial law is imposed because of the disease, not political reasons. The government tries to keep people calm, but the truth is far more terrifying.

Players will travel back to “a couple days before everything goes to shit,” learning what really happened during the outbreak’s early days. The setting adds a unique historical flavor rarely seen in games.

Inspired by Classics, Focused on Story

The game draws inspiration from beloved titles like Resident Evil and Returnal, but it also has a stronger narrative focus than some challenging games like those from FromSoftware. Expect cutscenes and audio logs that enrich the world and story.

The merging mechanic, where enemies combine to become deadlier, was the first concept created for the game and heavily influences both gameplay and story. Early symptoms of the pandemic involve people feeling an uncontrollable urge to merge, which escalates into the grotesque mutations players will face.

Single-Player Only, No Live Service Distractions

Zięba emphasized that Cronos is a pure single-player experience. He expressed fatigue with the current trend of live service games and wanted to create something focused on delivering a solid, self-contained game:

“It’s how it should be. I’m a bit tired by only live service stuff that, you know, try to catch me — not to engage me. […] I think we are overtired — everybody, now — by live service stuff. And how we can carry the player, how we can — no! Just make a good game.”

Release Plans

Cronos: The New Dawn is scheduled for release in 2025 and will be available on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The recent announcement during the July 31 Nintendo Direct confirmed the Switch 2 launch date as September 5, 2025.