Cronos: The New Dawn – Bloober Discusses Crafting Their Own Blend of Survival-Horror
With the success of the Silent Hill 2 remake under their belt, Bloober Team proved they’re a force to be reckoned with when it comes to delivering AAA horror gaming experiences.
The studio has a chance to prove it can forge its own path with its own IP in Cronos: The New Dawn, which is set to be released in September.
Before the game ships, we got a chance to try it out ourselves, and we walked away impressed and hopeful the game can sustain the tension it showed early on. Not only that, but Bloober Team also gave us a chance to poke around their head a bit when it comes to the game’s development as well.
Talking to MP1st is Grzegorz Like, the Lead Writer and Lead Narrative Designer of Cronos, and Jacek Zięba, the game director.
Bloober Talks Cronos: The New Dawn With MP1st
MP1st: It’s a 16-hour playtime, right? Would you say it’s a linear experience, or is there any open stuff?
Zięba: It’s hard to answer because we have a time travel story. In the case of structure, it’s linear with moments of freedom, like backtracking, and resolving all the stuff on the level. But still the story will need to go on a proper pace, because we want to say something very specific here.
Like: We thought about doing multiple variations of things,and all that, but after experimenting, we decided to make it more linear because that’s more of a friendly environment for horror stories. Because you don’t want to make it too big, because it wears off, you know? But we still wanted to give the player that kind of feel of choices and all that, so we have dialogue choices, and your choices affect what you see in the game, what souls you have in your collection.
People you extract will change the way you perceive the game. They will whisper to you different things and they will give you context of things. After one pla through, you meet your friend in a bar, you will talk about the game, and your experience will be a bit different, and maybe that will make you, you know, replay the game.
Zięba: Because of the merge system, combat can look different for each player.
Like: And there are multiple endings too.
MP1st: How many endings are there, and will it be obvious which sort of ending the player received, as in good, or bad, or is the team wanting something more ambiguous?
Zięba: It’s your decision what you think is good or bad with the ending(s) of the game. Even inside the company, someone will say, ‘Oh, but this one is bad,’ And somebody else will say, “no, that’s good.”
Like: We really wanted to approach the endings with care and do it more like a discussion. So there’s like arguments behind choosing this and choosing that. With the genre of psychological horror, you don’t want to go with, okay, the “bad” ending or the “good” ending. All things need to be a bit more, say, sophisticated, nuanced, and thought-provoking here.
MP1st: About the merge mechanic, and I think playing, it kind of already answered this, is it something that every enemy can do, or is it just those enemies that have the tentacles on them?
Zięba: There are two types of them with different attributes that can grow and become stronger, and then there are the ones that don’t merge, which I think you’ll be happy as it was one of the decisions not to make it super hardcore challenging. But they can have different stuff, they can be more sneaky, walk on walls, or hide here and there. So they are also different parts of the challenge, and there are boss fights that will also check your skills
Like: Some of them are not combat per se. I don’t want to spoil things, but it’s just obstacles you overcome. Better watch yourself, type of enemy.
When you say there are like two types of this tentacle monster, It can feel a bit underwhelming, but because of the merging system, the combinations of enemies become more and more varied. It’s easily more than 20.
You can have a “distance” (range-type) enemy who spits acid at you or pukes or whatever. Then he eats a guy that’s armored, and now you have a challenger that spits acid, and it’s armored, it’s bulletproof. So it’s tricky.
MP1st: Besides the merge mechanic, are there any other unique environmental interactions and puzzle elements, like with the “Void?” Where did that idea come from?
Zięba: From the get-go, we knew that we wanted to have a future in this brutalistic architecture covered in dust and destroyed by strange time and gravitational anomalies.
And with some of them, you can do something using the travelers’ tools,
Cronos Will Encourage You to Play It Again Even After Finishing It
MP1st: Besides the aforementioned replayability, will there be like a new game plus or anything like that?
Like: Yes, and you can also change the difficulty to a higher level.
MP1st: There’s a lot of cross-development and sharing when it comes to working on multiple projects. Looking at the studio as a whole, what learnings did you apply from the Silent Hill 2 remake, if any?
Zięba: It’s mostly at the beginning; they (other Bloober Team) started before us. So when we finish the medium, we can check how they approach third person, how they approach gunfight, and how they approach melee. And at some point, they diverge in our direction with more knowledge.
It’s less design-wise and more technology-wise. How they use Unreal 5, how we want to use it as a company, and, you know, push for their projects in a similar direction. But it’s in the case of technology, not so much the case of design.
MP1st: Any chance that we’ll have a demo of this game before launch?
Zięba: There’s always some chance. I don’t know. Good question
Like: Got to ask the higher-ups, I guess (laughs)
MP1st: We saw the slideshow of Poland from before we played. Given the game’s setting in a post-apocalyptic 1980s Poland, how does this unique historical and geographical context influence your design?
Like: We started with this idea of a cassette futurism connected to Brutalism and Soviet architecture of Poland.
Zięba: So even that was an influence when we started. We knew our character could not be high-tech. It needs to be more analog, more grounded, yet still futuristic.
Like: After that, when the first concept art became a reality, I knew we had a mission to support that vision with a compelling story. During the first sketching of the story, we were wondering if maybe it shouldn’t be “Nova Huta” or it should be, and all that.
But then we discovered that there are very many themes that we can use, like the historical background of people then, and use them to enforce and improve our story.
Zięba: Using the ’80s also lets us make it feel like a sci-fi movie from the era.
Like: The nostalgia vibe, but also craftsmanship. There was this idea of people trapped in this awful regime, you know? Under the boot of dictators and all that. We wanted to use that environment, use that background to show like this is the thing that’s more important for us. Like the relationship between characters, their emotions, and all that, and then spice it up more with this kind of sci-fi approach.
What if, because in the real world, we overcame the regime by uniting, what if uniting makes the merging harder. So we want to unite, we want to overcome these things, but then boom, the apocalypse happens.
It brings the opportunity to ask intriguing questions. Philosophical questions, you know?
Bloober Navigating the Troubled Seas of Game Development
MP1st Considering Bloober Team’s growing expertise in the horror genre, how do you see Cronos: The New Dawn contributing to the evolution of survival horror as a whole?
Zięba: Even being a new IP is something. There’s something new there in case of horror on this scale, in a way. But the merging system, this is something that changes the approach of how you play this game.
So, like in Alan Wake, with the flashlight and breaking the shields of enemies. Dead Space cut off the limbs. With Cronos: The New Dawn, this is the game where killing an enemy isn’t a solution; it’s a problem. So we need to approach it differently, and I’m very interested to know what happens when people are inspired by the merging system and where they want to take it.
Like: I feel we’re in some kind of a good era for horror games and movies and all that, but there was this wave of games that are refreshments of franchises you already know. Or remakes or sequels. We did a remake, so we are part of that.
But the landscape is still dominated by those franchises. Creating an IP right now, in this economic landscape for game development, is a big, big, privilege.
MP1st: Now, given the layoffs and studio shutdowns and that sort of thing that has been the norm for the past couple of years in the industry, how do you navigate that? How do you ensure that you stay within the game’s budget?
Zięba: In a way we prepared, it’s something that Bloober has done very well, even 10 years ago. Still not relying on only one game. So we created Layers of Fear. Then, as we were finishing, a couple of people started working on Observer. Then, after the Observer, we started working on Blair Witch, The Medium, and Layers of Fear as well. If something goes wrong, we still have more titles, and maybe we can make a success, but it’s not like, ‘ Okay, that’s all, folks, bye-bye. ‘
So it’s similar to Silent Hill 2 Remake here and Cronos. So if Silent Hill wasn’t a success, there is a Cronos behind it that can maybe do it.
We are also in a better situation all the time, preparation without knowing, of course, what will happen. Staying within the game budget, it’s a very magical place. It’s very tricky. Even without the constraints of the current economy, it’s always a very tricky part in how to do it.
Like: You’ve got to remember that game development is not only the developers, but also people who are very good with numbers and all that. So if you get those people right, I think you have bigger chances of creating something that will last.
I think that, overall, game development in Poland is in a good position. The times are tough too, but we still have more game development studios than our neighbors, Germany and France, or we like to think so.
MP1st: Since Bloober’s doing multiple AAA titles simultaneously, is there any cross-development happening? Or are you guys kind of just like on your own teams?
Zięba: Overall, there are two teams, and within each team, there are core teams. Like me and other people, we are always on one project, but part of the team rotate all the time.
MP1st: Yeah, they rotate when they are needed.
Zięba: In cases like technology, that kind of stuff. Sound departments or cinematic departments are rotating all the time. But a couple of us are glued to the project. We share the knowledge here.
Like: These guys are experts. We’re basically two teams that are making two projects, but we still have the same coffee machine in the office. When we meet there, we just exchange not only ideas, but also information, and all things.
I think the flow of information inside a studio is very, very well conducted. So people sometimes tend to be like, “Oh, but these are not the guys that did Silent Hill, right? But it’s fine, guys, don’t be worried.
MP1st: Beyond the success of the Silent Hill 2 remake, do you have any insight into the key factors or discussions that led Konami and Bloober to team up? How did that even happen?
Zięba: It just happened, once we just knew, Hey, we can do a Silent Hill remake.
Like: I think the important thing to say is it wasn’t like Konami approaching us like, “Hey, do Silent Hill”. We wanted to do that for years, but we didn’t have the resources to do that. And at some point, we kinda grew into that and decided okay, maybe we, and then the stars aligned.
Maybe this is the time we do a big, big game.
Bloober’s Cronos and Silent Hill Dev Teams Share Tech and Expertise
MP1st: You didn’t have all your eggs in one basket ’cause you were developing Cronos at the same time, right?
Zięba: We started with Silent Hill, then we went with Cronos The New Dawn. We had The Medium that time, and that was our proof of what we can do it.
Like: It was step after step after step.
MP1st: As we head into the final months before launch, what are you most excited for Players to discover and experience when they finally get their hands on it?
Zięba: A story and the world that is also a bit of crazy sci-fi because at this point, we marketed the game as gameplay-heavy action.
This will be something different, something new for Bloober. But we are still storytellers. There is a very cool story to discover.
Like: And it’s so annoying not to spoil things. Because I wanna talk with you guys about it.
MP1st: One question I had from the demo, actually, if, when you open those crates, are the items random?
Like: It’s not so random. We have, some of them are, some of them are not. We have systems to keep you on your toes and other stuff.
MP1st: I’m at it feels like it’s the final kind of boss before the drop, or what is it called?
Like: The time rift.
MP1st: Yeah. That, I’m right before that and I’m completely out of supplies. I have more bullets. I’ve got, I think I have one fire charge if you run out of everything. Are you just screwed for that section?
Zięba: No. There is always a way to get out more, or less. Both fights can also be more tricky and maybe their stuff is maybe less random than the other things . You can always go back and explore more.
Like: But I think it’s like more or less calculated that when you go into an arena,
Zięba: You should have a chance.
Like: You should like collecting all the things that are in the area that will get you, but you need to be very precise, but then you have to be very precise.
MP1st: There are multiple ways to play the game. How do you guys prefer to play? Or are you more offensive, more defensive? How do you use your upgrades?
Zięba: I think we are more offensive because we know the game, and we are not scared. I just know what happens. I think we play mostly offensive.
Like: I think I have a thousand hours in that game, man. And at this point, I want to master things. For me, the most fun thing is to use all the tools that the game gives you. So the flame thrower, then change your weapon to this, then change your weapon to that. You will use a mine. Then blowing things with this like a big gun.
MP1st: If you guys could pick your next Dream Horror game or IP, including movies, what would it be?
Zięba: Cronos 2.
Like: (Cronos) 2. Yeah. Or…
Zięba:: …Cronos 2 and 3.
Like: Yeah. Do three before two because you know it’s a time travel story. Dammit. Cronos The 2 Dawn. There it is, there’s the title, The 2 Dawn.
Cronos: The New Dawn is set for release on September 5 on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Switch 2, though the PS5 version is the only one getting a physical release.
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