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Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober Team’s next step after a successful Silent Hill 2 remake, and it’s all on them this time. While there may be no original source material to work off, the devs aren’t straying too far. Cronos is set to be a survival horror game; an incredibly gruelling one by the sounds of things.
Jacek Zieba, the co-director, and Shamil Yanbukhtin, the lead combat designer, recently explained during a dev diary just how difficult Cronos: The New Dawn is meant to be, detailing more about its enemies the Orphans and punishing resource management.
“We created a lot of unique encounters in the game,” Yanbukhtin says. “We’re asking you to think, analyse, and decide by yourself what would be the best target to start fighting. We’ve built different types of roles for [the enemies].
“There’s the Runner whose basic goal is to run at the player and kill them as fast as they can. Or the ranger character who stays behind and shoots you, forcing you to go closer to him. There are Bruisers, and there are big ass tanky guys, whose only goal is to drain as many resources as they can from you.”
All of the Orphans also look suitably creepy, and horrifically violent. I get the vibe that they’ll rapidly overwhelm you and be relentless in their pursuit of you. So keeping an impeccable inventory and staying on top of your stock doesn’t seem like an option. But their designs are clear and distinctive, so at the very least, you’ll know what kind of beast you’re about to face when you see it rushing towards you.
“You need to stay cautious and cool all the time because our enemies, the Orphans, can merge,” Zieba says. “So when you kill an enemy it creates in a way fuel for other enemies to be absorbed and then to become stronger. When the merge happens your running enemy can become a tank enemy and just become stronger and stronger, so don’t do it, you will suffer.”
For this reason, you’ll never really know what each encounter is going to be like. “During the fight, you need to think very fast about what you should do,” Zieba says. That is both cool and possibly quite draining. So many different situations can unfold in Cronos: The New Dawn that it may be hard to keep up with it all, but luckily, it seems like the developers have been quite forgiving when it comes to letting players craft their own custom solutions.
“As with many other survival horror games, we made a decent progression for the player,” Yanbukhtin says. “So you can upgrade your weaponry, your tools, your suit. It’s up to you how the resource management will be handled. Throughout the game, you have to figure out what works best for you, what kind of player you are and what kind of strategy fits best.”
Resource management is important in any survival horror game, but it sounds as if it’ll make or break your runs in Cronos: The New Dawn. If you’re more of an offensive player then the devs suggest placing the emphasis on crafting massive amounts of ammo before a fight. Or if you’re a little more cautious, like myself, then they suggest using those same resources to craft health kits. “It’s just as important what you’re doing with resources before the fight, during the fight, and after the fight,” Zieba says.
Boss fights were also hinted at, right at the end of the dev diary, but were quickly glossed over as it’s still a secret for the time being. But with Cronos: The New Dawn coming out in October later this year, we’ll likely get more information about this next level of horror soon.
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