Cronos: The New Dawn Review - The Iron Hurtin'

Coming off the Silent Hill 2 remake, the biggest question I had for Bloober Team was whether the studio had fully reversed course. Once a developer of middling or worse horror games, Silent Hill 2 was a revelation. But it was also the beneficiary of a tremendously helpful blueprint: The game it remade was a masterpiece to begin with. Could the team make similar magic with a game entirely of its own creation?

Cronos: The New Dawn tells me it can. While it doesn't achieve the incredible heights of the Silent Hill 2 remake, Cronos earns its own name in the genre with an intense sci-fi horror story that will do well to satisfy anyone's horror fix, provided they can stomach its sometimes brutal enemy encounters.

Cronos: The New Dawn looks and feels like the middle ground between Resident Evil and Dead Space. Played in third-person and starring a character who moves with a noticeable heft that keeps them feeling vulnerable, it's a game that at no point gets easy in its 16- to 20-hour story. All the hallmarks of a classic survival-horror game are here, from its long list of different enemy types that demand specific tactics, to a serious commitment to managing a very limited inventory, and especially to the feeling of routinely limping to the next safe room, where the signature music becomes the soundtrack to your brief moments of respite before you trek back out into the untold horrors that await you.