Director and designer Wojciech Piejko reveals the developer “didn’t want to overlap with, let’s say, a more grounded story.”

Cronos: The New Dawn is Bloober Team’s next horror title, launching in 2025 and featuring a post-apocalyptic premise with some time-traveling. Given the studio’s last sci-fi effort was Observer in 2017, what motivated a return to the genre? As director and designer Wojciech Piejko revealed to IGN, it was to differentiate Cronos from Silent Hill 2 remake.

“We, of course, knew that we were doing the Silent Hill game, so we didn’t want to overlap with, let’s say, a more grounded story. We said, ‘Okay, we will be doing this, so we need to go somewhere else to have a different world to not repeat ourselves.’ So yeah, that’s how we came up with Cronos.”

Bloober Team has had other titles set in “grounded” settings before Silent Hill 2, including Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and The Medium. Cronos: The New Dawn occurs across two periods – 1980s Poland and its ruined future, where The Change has resulted in horrifying creations.

Players must locate time rifts in the latter and return to the past to find certain individuals. Using the Harvester, their Essences are extracted and brought to the future for some unknown purpose. The gameplay utilizes an over-the-shoulder perspective and transforming weapons.

Cronos: The New Dawn is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.