Cronos: The New Dawn's fascinating world is one that only Bloober Team could craft

This newfound industry cred is now set to be spent on somewhat of a passion project.

A survival horror set in and inspired by their hometown of Krakow, and the Cold War-era model city of Nowa Huta, to which we were invited for a tour and a hands-on preview of the upcoming title.

Check out the video reaction below, or keep reading for our written thoughts!

Cronos's premise is far from a simple one. In the 1980s, the world was ravaged by a cataclysmic event known as the Change, during which people were transformed into 'Orphans'.

You are a Traveler, an ironclad agent for a shadowy organisation tasked with traversing the ruins of Nowa Huta, locating links to the past to extract people who did not survive the Change.

While it is never easy to get a grasp on a story in a short couple of hours previewing a game like this, Cronos holds its cards very close to its chest in its opening sections, only really showing glimpses of its wider story near the end of my time with it, delivering a hook that certainly bodes well for the full game.

Where it really shone, however, is in its world. In exploring the game's opening areas, the reason for choosing Poland, and Nowa Huta more specifically, as the game's setting becomes very apparent.

The world is dripping with character, delivering the kind of environmental storytelling that manages to make a world in which you are seemingly the only person still feel alive.

Letters, posters, noticeboards and more are scattered throughout the levels – these are the ruins of a former city, after all – and in reading them, you begin to piece together the lives of various former residents of the city, telling a story of 1980s Krakow in the background of your own story of future Krakow.

Taking the time to explore and hunt out some of these strands of exposition reveals the fear gripping Krakow as the Change began to take hold, detailing illnesses, deaths and quarantine.

All of this plays out against the backdrop of the city's Cold War era history, with themes of individualism versus collectivism evident in much of the game's environmental storytelling.

While Cronos's story and world certainly caught my attention, I cannot say that its gameplay had the same draw.

That is not to say that Cronos's gameplay is bad – far from it – but rather, that it isn't anything particularly new.

For anyone who has played a couple of Resident Evil or Mass Effect titles, you will feel right at home in Cronos's tattered ruins.

You will explore linear levels, taking out the odd Orphan, hunting for supplies to continually restock while occasionally solving a quick puzzle to open a door or create new paths.

Cronos achieves all of this excellently; while familiar by any metric, Bloober achieves the same kind of high-quality gameplay that you would expect from any major horror title and deserves praise for that.

Where Cronos does separate itself from the crowd is, interestingly, through a facet of the Orphans' AI.

Promotional material for the game is plastered with the warning, "Don't let them merge," and once you witness merging for yourself, it becomes strikingly obvious why this warning is so prevalent.

Going in, I did make the mistake of thinking this was just a gimmick, but not only is it the highlight of Cronos's combat, but it makes some sections shockingly stressful.

When you kill an Orphan (a phrase I am not often wont to use), other Orphans can absorb them into themselves, becoming significantly more powerful. The only ways to prevent this are to use your limited fuel to burn the bodies, or to kill the Orphans before they can merge.

When I say more powerful, I really mean it. At my early point in the game, with so few resources, Orphans merging was essentially a death sentence.

The way levels are designed is very clever. At times, you'll be faced with situations where, for example, upon killing one Orphan in a room, two more shuffle in from opposite sides.

These set pieces require a level of strategy that isn't often present in these kinds of games. Beyond just resource management, you now need to think on spot, determining the best approach.

It's an experience that really cannot be conveyed fully in words, as I experienced for myself. Reading about merging before going into the preview for myself, it sounded like it would be simple to deal with. The reality hits you like a truck, and in those moments, it instils a level of, not necessarily fear, but heart-pumping anxiety.

Bloober is a team riding a wave of confidence right now. Deservedly so, after the success of Silent Hill 2.

Given the freedom to flex their developmental muscles, it would have been easy to make something safe – a cookie cutter survival horror that follows on from what the greats have already done.

Instead, Cronos is something truly out there. Sure, it draws heavily on the stylings of the likes of Dead Space, Mass Effect, Resident Evil et al.

But at its core, this is a wholly unique story, and one that only Bloober can tell. It's a Polish story made by Polish developers, influenced by Polish history, culture, and politics, and it's those things that have truly drawn me into Cronos's world.

That, and the cliffhanger they ended the preview on. Rude.

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