My first October horror game, pretty happy I started here. It’s an intriguing enough premise to pull you in, though the reveals aren’t too mind-blowing. The jumpscares in the second half got on my nerves a little, but didn’t detract from the package much. Combat is weighty and environments are atmospheric in a way that instills the sense of desperation. It’s a survival horror experience in the best way and I really enjoyed it.

The story unveils itself in pieces, so here is the basic gist. Your role is to extract the minds of certain individuals to find the cure for a disease that essentially wiped out humanity. Once you have their minds, you upload them to the Collective and seek your next target. The disease essentially makes a person want to fuse with others. It affects the mind in addition to the body as it turns into glue bit by bit. The process is horrifying and leads to some visuals that are a bit unnerving. Making your way through the environments to find your target is a journey that’s simple at first, but a few snags in the uploading process send things off the rails pretty quickly. Though you meet few people, the importance of your mission is never doubted. As a player, you want to save humanity; as The Traveler, she’s just doing her job.

To obtain the minds, you have to traverse rifts and fight off the infected. Your targets are prepicked and you don’t have much agency in the journey itself beyond a few arbitrary dialogue choices. Your character, ND-3576 or The Traveler, is more robotic than person. She knows her mission and will complete it no matter what. Her character does develop a bit as the story progresses and as you uncover the mystery of the Collective and the Travelers themselves, her actions become more understandable. There are a lot of layers here and the stories of the people you’re sent to collect factor into that heavily. To fully understand them, you’ll want to read any notes you find, listen to voice logs and, of course, talk to them when the opportunity arises. Though the moments you spend directly conversing with them are used sparingly, they always felt meaningful. Artur and Weronika being the highlights for me. I empathized with their struggles and understood why they did what they did. You’ll also have a partner introduced relatively early on. The Warden will be at your base, a run-down tram station, and provides an interesting perspective on the occurrences. I always enjoyed listening to his banter and his development is… interesting. The story is heavily dependent on these characters holding up, and I think most do, but where it truly shines is the combat.

To dispatch the infected, you have a gun that can transform into other guns as you find specific parts. That’s pretty cool, but what really makes the gun special is that most of the variations allow you to charge them. Charging up your shot and letting loose on an enemy feels fantastic. It’s brutal sounding and heavily impactful as your character recoils and the enemy spasms backwards. The feeling never got old. While the gun is your main tool, there are a few gadgets that will set fire to your enemies, staggering them and allowing you to unload bullets until it fades. You also have a melee attack, both a two-hit punch and a stomp, but neither are useful unless you upgrade the power. Upgrades come in the form of cores and energy, which you’ll find in nooks and from rescuing cats. Why cats? Who knows, but the cores are used to improve your Shell (suit) and the energy for your weaponry. The usual firepower, clip size and recoil rate are here, but the cool thing is that you can undo your upgrades at any time, so if you find a new weapon and want to invest in it instead, you can without any detriments. I found the most use in the pistol (I always do) and the shotgun, but one late game weapon is pretty powerful without any upgrades. Each had different variations which, with the reset option, allows for you to mess around to find out which ones you might like more. The combat system here is truly engaging, not wearing thin the eighteen hours it took me to finish it. That’s also due to the enemy design.

The monstrosities you’ll face come in many forms. The headless creatures will rush you while the larger mutated will take large swings in your direction. Some enemies will try to pull you in from their perch stuck on the wall while small, pustule-like creatures will jump at you and explode into poison. Both of these are annoying in their own rights, but the pustule guys don’t really fit in with the others. They’re more an annoyance than anything as you have to wait for the poison to dissipate or take damage. There are larger enemies that guard their upper bodies with thick masses, spider creatures with multiple heads and arms along with bosses that require specific methods to dispatch. Really there are only two different boss types and both want you to douse the creature in fire and shoot pimples, though a familiar concept, these engagements were still intense. The main way the game keeps the player from getting too comfortable in combat is the merge mechanic. Remember how the virus wants people to fuse together? That urge doesn’t stop once they’ve mutated. If you allow the monster to merge with another dead one, you’re in for a bad time. They become ridiculously strong and take a wealth of ammunition to take down. Which is a problem, considering you have to consider resource management here as well. You can pick up scrap and chemicals to make ammo and healing on the fly, but your inventory is limited, so you’ll need to choose wisely. Much of the time I elected to not have any healing, just so I could fit more bullets. This worked, if I executed well, which does add to the tension, but I’d argue all of these elements come together in a way that, even if you have a ton of healing, will still make you realize how powerless you truly are. The environments are mostly dark, stone hallways that share similar themes, making the world cohesive if not a bit repetitive. A sandy area features holes where the infected will pop out, adding some variety, but otherwise it’s very samey. The methods of traversal don’t help as you’re either slowly climbing a ladder, shimmying through a gap after moving a crate or ducking under something. All of these being generic AAA movements that made me roll my eyes with how often the animations played. The differentiator here is the time bubbles and gravity platforms. Time bubbles let you move objects backward or forward in time to create pathways forward. Again, nothing new, but they did force you to search for them and were a decent idea for roadblocks, though the idea could’ve gone a bit further. The gravity platforms don’t really make sense as a concept. You get boots that allow you to use them, but why are they there? Were they laid out just for the Travelers? If so, why are they in inconvenient places? They don’t make sense in the world, nor are they very engaging, mostly just disorienting. One other traversal mechanic is the dark, weblike substance that has to be burned to progress. These usually have a gasoline canister placed nearby, so if you don’t have any fire gadgets in your inventory, you can progress. However, there are some times when they don’t, which are usually extra rooms with resources and such. Using a bullet to set fire to the substance feels bad, because of resource scarcity, and running back to the saferoom to get torch fuel does too, which is a smart way to get players to make a choice.

Cronos: The New Dawn is a fantastic survival horror game. Though it’s not as overtly scary as others in the genre, the mechanics of the merge keep encounters tense, even once you’re powerful. The game design forces you to be vigilant, watching for merges and also for off the path rooms and secrets leading to more resources. Every bullet counts and this game makes sure you understand that. While the story doesn’t do anything too different, its choice of topics is familiar and relatable for a wide audience. If you’re into the genre, this is one you must play. For those that aren’t sure about it, I’d say that this would be a good entry point into a genre that tackles meaningful subject matter. This one just takes its time with it.