I recently returned from Gamescom 2025, and after a brief stint of norovirus, I am back in the hotseat to bring you details of some of the biggest and best games I played at the show.
I went hands on with the likes of Crimson Desert, Silent Hill F, and even Hollow Knight: Silksong ahead of its big launch. But, I sit here somewhat surprised to tell you that it was none of these big-name heavy hitters that emerged as my game of the show.
Tucked away in the ID@Xbox section of the Xbox booth was a title I've been incredibly curious about since its reveal. "Cronos: The New Dawn," from Bloober Team, developers of Layers of Fear, The Medium, and Silent Hill 2 Remake.
I've not made a secret of my criticisms of Bloober in the past. I enjoyed Layers of Fear and Observer, but I felt like the studio missed the mark heavily with The Medium, and found myself worried that they'd taken command of Silent Hill from Konami. But then, Silent Hill 2 Remake dropped — which shocked the world by doing the impossible. Make no mistake, I believe this will be remembered as one of 2025's best Xbox games and best PC games too.
Silent Hill 2 is a horror legend, and Bloober successfully threaded the needle of honoring the original while gently peppering in its own uniquely haunting touch. The studio seems to have nailed combat mechanics now, which raised the stakes for its own horror title, Cronos: The New Dawn, set to launch on Xbox PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC on September 5, 2025.
After going hands on, I came away elated to have been proven wrong. Bloober Team's Cronos pays homage to various horror behemoths, from Resident Evil to Dead Space, while a uniquely Bloober sense of dreadful loneliness threatens to drown you.
A tribute to horror greats, and very much its own beast
While Bloober has had hits and misses narratively with some of its earlier titles, one thing the studio always managed to land without fail was atmospherics. Whether it's The Medium's Beksiński-inspired nightmare visions or Observer's twisted Blade Runner-esque fever dream, Bloober always showcased an intimate knowledge of works in horror.
What firmly seemed to hold the studio back was the lack of interactivity, to some degree, where anything that required interaction beyond rudimentary exploration came through as clunky. I would also argue that Bloober approached some of its themes with the subtlety of a jack hammer at times, undermining that sense of mystery that can spark dread and paranoid imaginings on the viewer.
After tackling Silent Hill 2 successfully and meticulously, Bloober seems to have found its groove. Silent Hill 2 Remake successfully retooled the original's notoriously intentionally gritty combat, while also faithfully threading the game's roller coaster of madness — between its slower, more explorative puzzle segments and more harrowing, nightmare world segments.
Bloober seems to have poured this knowledge faithfully into Cronos: The New Dawn. I played two separate demos for the game. One was combat-oriented, and the other was behind closed doors, giving a deeper glimpse at the game's story and pacing. I can't tell you how excited I am for the full package, particularly as someone who loves Dead Space, Resident Evil, and even The Evil Within.
A quiet, Soviet post-apocalypse
Cronos: The New Dawn wears its inspirations on its sleeve unashamedly. My Dead Space muscle memory immediately kicked in while playing. The Traveller's heavy suit reminisces heavily of Isaac Clark's, complete with the ability to throw haymakers and stomp felled enemies into chunks — all on the same buttons.
However, in gunplay, it borrows a little more from The Evil Within surprisingly, I found. Your weapon sway is aggressive at the start of the game, but it can be upgraded and improved over the course of play, using resources hidden in the field. It encourages exploration, but the amount of ammunition you'll find is vanishingly scarce.
Will you save up resources to upgrade your gear, or spend it on ammo? The game actively encourages you to be resourceful, using the environment where possible to maximize combat effectiveness. You will die while playing, but every death comes with knowledge of an explosive barrel or strategically placed flamethrower ammo to help you overcome the next challenge more effectively.
During my demo, I overheard another game journalist complaining to Bloober about the game's gunplay, but I couldn't help but disagree. The weapon sway forces you to place your shots, and can induce panic — this is a horror game first with an action edge. I found it to be most similar to the likes of The Evil Within in this vein, particularly since burning enemy bodies forms a significant strategic tool in your arsenal.
As "The Traveller," your task is to travel through space and time to investigate "The Change." The ill-defined event seems to have thoroughly broken the world. In the present, huge piles of congealed human remains spews out Dead Space-like entities, complete with warped features, comprised of multiple merged human corpses.
If you don't burn their bodies, you run the risk of subsequent enemies merging with them, creating even bigger, more horrific monstrosities that take even more resources to dispatch. You can interrupt these merge sequences with melee attacks or fire, but it gives combat segments an interesting strategic hook as you try to plan out which bodies to burn, and which enemies to prioritize.
The combat is incredibly satisfying in practice I found, albeit tricky. It'll be interesting to see how far enemy merges can go, and what other horrors lurk in the depths of the full game.
Above all, I'm intrigued by the story. Both demos blew my mind with a relentless march of "WTF," refusing to give away too much of the game's secrets ahead of launch. Audio logs and text files hint at the horror as it unfolded across the timelines you'll explore, painting a picture of a society on a steady decline into total madness.
The Traveller is part of some futuristic society that is travelling to past timelines ... but who exactly are they? What exactly happened? Does The Traveller herself even know? So much of Cronos is shrouded in opaque mystery, and I love it.
Bloober has hit the big leagues, and I owe them an apology
Despite clear inspirations from the modern Resident Evil games, Dead Space, and even The Evil Within, Cronos: The New Dawn's bleak retro-futuristic atmosphere represents an environment rarely trodden by these types of games. The Eastern European setting and its brutalist USSR shadows haunt every corner of the game, offering a glimpse of Poland before the Iron Curtain fell and Russian totalitarianism was defeated. In this world, it was ultimately "The Change" that defeated the USSR this time around ... albeit apparently taking the entire world with it, warping time itself, while turning the survivors into mutated, congealed horrors.
Who exactly is The Traveller? What is present day society actually like? What happened to the sky? Why is there Giger-esque retro-tech littered throughout apocalyptic Poland? How did the flow of time get broken? Why has the remaining population begun merging together into grotesque amalgamations? I can't wait to find out the answers to these harrowing questions, and you can too on September 5, 2025, on Xbox, PS5, and Steam.
I didn't trust Bloober Team to hit the big leagues, but here we are after Silent Hill 2 Remake with the studio's very own take on the survival horror format, and my early impressions are incredibly positive. Bloober has ascended, and it's great to be proven so very wrong.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
