It's Always Darkest Before Dawn!
It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Plays, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. Usually, it's about an hour or so but I don't want to spoil too much of the game for you. This time, we're looking at Cronos: The New Dawn. This is the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game so let's take a look.
The Nintendo Switch 2 version of Cronos: The New Dawn was the main version I was interested in checking out. It's always great to see third party games jump back into the Nintendo swimming pool. I'm not the biggest survival/third person shooter fan but I wanted to give Cronos a shot. I have to say that Bloober Team did a fine job with the game.
Set in a grim world where Eastern European brutalism meets retro-futurist technology, Cronos: The New Dawn lets you experience a gripping story that straddles the line between past and future. The Change has left the world in shambles and it's up the Travelers to explore the remaining wreckage.
Survival horror games need to do a good job in setting the mood/atmosphere and Cronos does a great job. Going into this knowing it was survival horror, I was always on my toes looking for something to jump out at me. I was also on high alert when a room felt too empty, just waiting for that monster to scare the hell out of me. Safe to say that only happened a few times but when it did, the jump scares really made me jump. The controls felt very smooth/responsive and it's a good thing they did. If you aren't careful, you could get jumped by enemies quickly.
You will die in Cronos: The New Dawn. That being said, you'll be able to learn from your mistakes and survive longer. You'll be able to upgrade your weapons/protective suit as well as craft items for survival. You'll want to explore almost everywhere because you might need to find materials to craft bullets/health tanks to live. You don't want to get caught stuck without materials. I did and it doesn't end well for you. It felt very easy to see items strewn about in various locations. As I mentioned before, you'll be able to use those items to craft.
You'll want to master your weapons/inventory early on as you will have to rely on them later. Going for headshots on enemies is a good strategy because it stuns them but it isn't the beat all-end all. What I mean by that is if you stagger/partially knockout the enemy, make sure to burn them. Lifeless enemies can merge with other enemies for major problems so burn them at the stake to get rid of the threat. Another option for some enemy locations is just run. If you can't take care of them, run away and get to a safe location. Some will leave you alone but others might chase you so stay alert. You'll also have the option to charge your weapon as well as melee attacks. I found that charging weapons did a bit more damage but used ammo quickly. I wish I was a better shooting-game aimer but on the plus side, you can run away too.
If you want to learn more about the backstory of the game, look for audio tapes and documents strewn about. You might find out some juicy information on a audio file or a door key code so look around when you can. A major bonus for the game was I only noticed a long-ish load time/screen when I died in combat and had to reload from a checkpoint/save location. Other than that, the game runs very well on the Nintendo Switch 2. Fans of the genre looking for a horror game on the Switch 2 should give it a look.
Make sure you check out the hands-on video below.