Cronos: The New Dawn is brutal pandemic horror: ‘Hard mode, in the old-school way’

The brand new gameplay trailer for Cronos: The New Daybreak, out Wednesday from Bloober Group, debuts some tense gameplay that includes the protagonist — a time traveler with futuristic armor and an arsenal of weapons — going through off in opposition to misshapen, humanlike enemies with oozing, wiggling tendrils rising from varied components of their our bodies. I obtained to see much more on the Sport Builders Convention in March, the place I sat down with Jacek Zięba and Wojciech Piejko, who’re co-directing the sport at Bloober Group. And I can let you know one factor for positive: This recreation appears laborious.

[Ed. note: This story was originally published on April 17. We’re republishing it today following the announcement during the July 31 Nintendo Direct that Cronos: The New Dawn would launch on Switch 2 on Sept. 5.]

I didn’t play Cronos myself; the preview was hands-off, so as a substitute I used to be handled to watching Zięba play by way of a bit of the sport as his colleague Piejko informed me about its time journey premise. The time-hopping occurs throughout (at the least) two distinct time durations — there’s the current time interval wracked by a horrific, mutating pandemic that’s reworked many people into monstrous beings, after which there’s the earlier than occasions, when the pandemic was simply beginning up and folks didn’t perceive how dangerous it was going to get. The builders had been purposefully imprecise about the remainder of the story, although, citing their want to keep away from spoilers in response to virtually all of my questions on it; they need gamers to expertise the sci-fi narrative on their very own when the sport is prepared. (Cronos doesn’t but have a agency launch date, solely a 2025 launch window.)

All through the play session, Zięba stored swearing beneath his breath, defeating troublesome enemy after troublesome enemy by the pores and skin of his enamel. To your reference, readers, often recreation builders are so good on the recreation they’re making that it’s a cakewalk for them to play, whether or not a reporter is observing them or not. However Cronos is purposefully tuned to be a troublesome survival expertise, and the builders need to maintain it that approach.

Once I requested them about a straightforward mode, each builders shook their heads and Zięba stated, “It’s laborious mode, within the old-school approach.” “So there’s simply the one mode?” I requested. “One mode,” he confirmed. “Once you end the sport, we will unlock tougher issue.”

Naturally, FromSoftware’s video games got here up as a degree of comparability throughout our dialog, however Zięba and Piejko informed me Cronos is much more story-forward than these video games; I didn’t get to see a lot of this within the gameplay-focused preview, however they defined the sport has cutscenes and audio logs to take heed to that can reveal extra about its world. The builders additionally cited Resident Evil and Returnal as influences, in addition to the Netflix present Darkish and the film 12 Monkeys — each time journey tales.

When Zięba and Piejko identified the sport’s setting — Poland, which can be the place the devs are from — I requested if there have been any historic occasions that gamers may need to learn about in the event that they aren’t already aware of the nation’s historical past.

“We set it at first of 1980 for varied causes,” stated Zięba. Within the early ’80s, the nation was beneath martial legislation, and the identical is true within the alt-history Nineteen Eighties of Cronos — albeit not for a similar motive. In Cronos, martial legislation is enacted “as a result of there’s a illness,” Zięba defined, “and the federal government [is] saying, No, it’s all proper, every little thing is all proper, simply be at house, it’s cool, it’s OK.” However when the time-traveling protagonist goes again in time to earlier than the pandemic went widespread — “a pair days in the beginning goes to shit,” as Zięba put it — they’ll study extra about what occurred and why.

However once more, with the intention to see that story, gamers will should be very methodical and strategic whereas enjoying Cronos. One level of order got here up within the latest trailer, which options this ominous sentence splashed throughout the display: “Don’t allow them to merge.” That was additionally the primary tip that each builders informed me to remember when going through the sport’s enemies. Mainly, these creatures can merge collectively to create bigger and extra highly effective variations of themselves, so when you see a monster approaching a close-by corpse mendacity on the bottom, be very frightened. The extra they merge with one another, the extra highly effective the resultant creature is, and the extra ammo it’s going to take to kill it — which isn’t good, as a result of ammo may be very, very scarce on this recreation.

“The fundamental enemies, we name them doppelgangers,” defined Zięba. “They’re perhaps comprised of two, three, 4, 5 individuals — however they nonetheless assume, I’m an individual. So they give the impression of being extra human. However you can too battle with monsters that — they know they’re not an individual. They give the impression of being very completely different than these guys.”

This “merge” mechanic was the primary mechanic created for this recreation, and all the recreation and story emerged from that idea. Within the early days of the in-game pandemic, that was one of many first signs — “individuals beginning to really feel an urge to come back collectively,” as Piejko put it. Ultimately, that urge became the horrific merging that’s now on show within the apocalyptic timeline.

Cronos: The New Daybreak is just not solely a very unique IP, it’s additionally very particularly a single-player expertise. “It’s the way it needs to be,” declared Zięba. “I’m a bit drained by solely reside service stuff that, you already know, attempt to catch me — to not have interaction me. […] I feel we’re overtired — all people, now — by reside service stuff. And how we will carry the participant, how we will — no! Simply make recreation.”

Bloober Group’s Cronos: The New Daybreak is out in 2025 for Nintendo Swap 2, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Sequence X.