Cronos The New Dawn Switch 2 Review

Cronos The New Dawn Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

I have never played a horror game before, but I always look for chances to broaden my horizons. When Bandai Namco offered me the chance to step into Cronos: The New Dawn, I hesitantly raised my hand to give it a try. There was something about a time-travelling horror that felt unique, and I was curious to see how it would play out. Now, in my life, whether due to occupational hazards or just plain bad luck, I have been in many nerve-wracking situations, yet nothing quite compared to what this game put me through. What’s it Like? Suit up, check your ammo, and don’t let them merge as we review Cronos: The New Dawn for Nintendo Switch 2. Such is our calling.

In Cronos: The New Dawn, a mysterious event known only as the Change has torn the world apart, leaving behind a wasteland haunted by creatures that are more nightmare fuel than flesh. The few who can survive in this broken reality are known as Travelers. You step into the role of one such Traveler, tasked with exploring the ruins of the old world and seeking out rifts in time that might hold the key to understanding what went wrong. The game drags you into a fractured reality where survival depends on a willingness to face horrors that only a few have the strength to endure. What gives Cronos The New Dawn an even sharper edge is its grounding in a very real past. The developers at Bloober Team set the game within a recreated 1980s Nowa Huta, a district of Kraków in Poland, where many of them grew up, lending to a striking authenticity.

The game offers little explanation at first. You wake after your predecessor has failed and are handed the burden of finishing their mission. Answers are scarce, and Cronos: The New Dawn carefully rations out its mysteries, pulling you deeper into its world with each fragment of information. The prologue sets the tone brilliantly, blending fear and curiosity in equal measure. Early on, you creep through the remains of a tailor shop and the apartments above it, piecing together scraps of the past through scattered notes and diary entries.

One story, written by a young boy, details his parents falling victim to a strange illness, hinting at the creeping horror that has taken root in the world. Just as you start to think you understand, the game reveals its hand. You are confronted by the first Orphan, a terrifying, zombie-like creature that is a horrific contortion of a human and monster. What makes this encounter so effective is not just the creature itself, but the way the game sets you up for it. Cronos never lets you relax; instead, it twists expectations, springing horrors at moments when you least expect them. You can run if you need to, but outside of combat, you will find yourself slowly edging through the dark, studying every shadow, straining to catch each sound, and hoping that when hell breaks loose, you don’t let them merge.

The Traveler herself adds another layer to the story. She carries a cold, factual disposition that fits the bleakness of her task. While you do get moments to choose dialogue options, they rarely alter the story. Instead, they highlight her brutal detachment from the lives she encounters. Most of the characters she interacts with are already dead, echoes trapped in time displacement. Her words, often stripped of comfort, reinforce the grim truth that no matter what she says, she cannot save them from the horrors that have already claimed their fate.

Cronos The New Dawn is played from a third-person perspective, and while you can upgrade weapons and enhance your suit by finding cores, you never feel like an unstoppable force. Every encounter is measured and dangerous. Guns require charging your shot to be truly effective. A carefully timed pistol shot may take two or three hits to bring down an Orphan, while panicked trigger-spamming could burn through six shots or more. The result is combat that feels both tense and satisfying, punishing impatience while rewarding those who keep their nerve.

The Orphans themselves make battles even more unnerving as they are drawn to the corpses of the fallen and will attempt to merge with them, creating even more horrific forms that are stronger, faster, and far deadlier. The only way to prevent this is by burning the bodies with your flamethrower, though fuel is painfully scarce. Variations of Orphans add further unpredictability, from those with extra limbs that shield them against gunfire to hulking brutes that demand everything you have to stay alive. Each fight becomes a delicate balancing act of resource management, deciding when to push forward and when to flee, and finding ways to use the environment in your favour.

There are also some punishingly difficult boss fights that made me sigh in relief when I finally defeated them. Time anomalies introduce a clever puzzle-solving element, letting you restore collapsed stairways, repair ruined roads, or even reconstruct exploded barrels to turn the tide in combat. These mechanics complement the item displacement set pieces that punctuate the story, further immersing you in a world where time itself is fractured and unreliable. It is a system that feels both inventive and thematically spot-on, really giving you the sense that you are surviving in a place untethered from time itself.

On Nintendo Switch 2, Cronos The New Dawn runs at a steady 30 frames per second, even in the heat of combat, which keeps the tension intact. The lighting work is excellent, with torch beams and slivers of daylight cutting through the gloom to great effect, and enemy models carry enough detail to remain unsettling throughout. The world itself holds up well, though some textures appear flat or washed out when inspected closely. The biggest drawback comes in the biomass sections, where low-poly surfaces and rough detail take the edge off what should be the most frightening parts of the game. It is a shame, because these areas are designed to be the most grotesque, yet the reduced fidelity makes them less effective. Despite that, the overall presentation does enough to keep you firmly immersed in its nightmarish world.

For my Travelers looking into accessibility options, I’m pleased to report that there are several control and visual options to help you complete your mission. It’s great to see Bloober Team add these options so everybody can be scared to death. At just under $90 AUD, Cronos The New Dawn is a truly frightening experience that will last you roughly 16–20 hours, and with the New Game+ mode, will most likely lure you into another time anomaly, which is great value for money.

For my first horror game, Cronos The New Dawn was a truly scary experience. Its excellent world-building, tense exploration, and expert sense of when to throw something your way or leave you in silence kept me gripped from start to finish. Sure, I could only really play it in the daytime, and after this review, I am grateful that something bright and colourful like Pac-Man World 2 Repac is releasing in a few days because that will be cheaper than therapy, but that is a credit to just how great Cronos is. If you’re after a game that will have you gripped with its story, heart pounding with its atmosphere, and possibly sleeping with a night light on, then Cronos The New Dawn is the game for you. Remember… don’t let them merge.

So, What’s It Like? Cronos The New Dawn is like Dead Space crossed with Resident Evil.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by Bandai Namco, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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