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Conquer Cronos: The New Dawn's nightmarish merging monsters with these five tips
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Matt Cabral
Bloober Team's Cronos: The New Dawn unapologetically remedies this, trading empowering bullet-flying battles for nerve-fraying encounters shaped by limited ammunition, scarce resources, and enemies eager to floss their teeth with your intestines.
While the return to form is welcome, it may be a bit daunting for fans who've become accustomed to perpetually full ammo clips and inventories stocked with more medkits than a pharmacy. With that in mind, we've put together five tips to help you survive Cronos' punishing post-apocalypse while keeping your goosebumps at bay.
Take the survival horror stuff very seriously
Like any proper survival horror entry worth its weight in spilled entrails, Cronos: The New Dawn ensures you never feel too powerful in the face of its otherworldly foes. You can count on never having an abundance of ammo, crafting resources, or health kits. And managing your meager supplies is no picnic either, as inventory slots are equally scarce.
But while many games follow this fear-inducing formula, Cronos cranks it up to 20. Bloober Team's take is a true tribute to the genre that consistently makes you feel outnumbered and underequipped. With that said, you'll want to lend weight to every single decision, from when you should use a medkit to what upgrades you should buy. Even deciding when to pull the trigger on that last bullet in your chamber should be carefully considered.
As such, obvious upgrade options like boosted health or damage might not always be the way to go. Less glamorous choices, such as adding an inventory slot or increasing your clip size, could be the life-saver you're looking for. There's plenty of details to consider as well, like the fact that fitting an extra bullet in your clip will free up the spot it previously occupied in your inventory. Think every upgrade through, and don't be afraid to reset some of your choices (for a small cost) if your current selections aren't cutting it.
Leave no loot behind
Carefully consider the wisdom of that old adage about traveling off the beaten path. Resources are as rare as they are necessary, so you'll want to seek out anything that's not nailed down. Even if it means diving headfirst into danger or doing some inconvenient backtracking after freeing up inventory slots, you should snatch every last bit of upgrade currency and materials you need to make ammo and medkits.
At the very least, you should scour every corner of the bleak landscape to ensure you haven't left any Cores behind, as these coveted items are especially rare and required for many upgrades. They're also occasionally gifted by friendly felines, so if you hear a faint "meow" in the distance, follow it.
Diligently canvassing the environment also guarantees you won't overlook lesser—but often life-sustaining—loot, like extra bullets and health kits. Keys, tools, and other quest-specific items also turn up quicker when no stone is left unturned. And while exploring, don't be afraid to go the extra mile and revisit stations. At terminals where you save your progress and apply upgrades, you'll find stations granting valuable items, like corpse-cooking torches.
But don't think of these spots as one-and-done destinations; after torching a body, for example, be sure to return to the machine and grab another for future bad-guy barbecues. You should also save often, as Cronos isn't shy about brutally killing you, stripping you of hard-won progress. Rather than desperately hoping you'll survive to the next autosave or terminal, just spam the last one you visited until you're comfortable venturing forward to face the next threat.
Never run, always reload
If we've not made it abundantly clear, Cronos isn't about to hold your hand. It's an often punishing experience that'll frequently see your fate graphically sealed by a run-of-the-mill monster. There really are no low-level enemies in this version of the post-apocalypse, so you'll want to tread lightly.
This means not utilizing the sprint mechanic unless an encounter's gone south and you're only hoping to live through the next few seconds. Whether hunting for loot, searching for quest items, or navigating a seemingly non-threatening stretch of Cronos' horrifying world, you should walk slowly and keep your head on a swivel; trust us, aggressively pushing forward is the quickest way to see your spine unceremoniously removed.
If an enemy gets the jump on you, it probably won't end well. But even if you avoid a grisly death, being unexpectedly attacked by a tentacle-shooting terror will likely lead to you hastily using resources you can't easily reclaim. Whenever possible, you want to keep your distance and avoid being caught off guard.
While cautiously walking the wasteland, you'll also want to keep your weapon as full as you can…assuming you have any ammo. Given Cronos' stinginess with bullets, it's all too easy to forget to reload, especially if you've barely caught your breath between battles.
Waiting to replenish your clip until you're toe-to-tendril with a towering creature is a good way to wind up bleeding out. Every fraction of a second counts in this unforgiving world, so when things are quiet, reload all your weapons to prepare for the harsh road ahead.
Master the charge
While we don't recommend charging towards Cronos' nightmare-conjuring creatures, we do suggest regularly charging your weapon. Like in many other games, your protagonist's weapons pack a heavier punch when juiced with an extended trigger pull. But in Cronos' case, the difference is significant, making the souped-up shot not a mere suggestion, but an enemy-stopping necessity.
Charging shots takes time and, as previously established, every second is precious during the game's anxiety-ratcheting encounters. You should carefully consider when and where to unleash these extra-powerful projectiles. Attempting to charge when an enemy is too close can result in the baddie interrupting your effort before you're able to get the shot off. Not only will you have missed the opportunity to do some damage, but you'll likely suffer some yourself in the process.
Charging too soon can lead to an off-target blast, resulting in an angrier creature and a wasted bullet. Avoid these lethal mistakes by not only learning how long your weapon's charge takes—from trigger-pull to projectile impact—but also how your target behaves. Sorting out a threat's attack pattern will provide crucial knowledge, such as when it's safe to charge up, and at what point the target will remain still enough to eat your bullet.
Weapon upgrades like charge speed and stability increases also play a role here. After a couple of unlocks, the former feels more beneficial than investing in a damage increase or bigger clip capacity, while the latter is a smart investment that'll help you nail those headshots even when your aim isn't perfect.
Treat every enemy like a boss battle
Per the points above, your best bet is to face all enemies—even seemingly low-level threats—as if they're a level-capping boss baddie. Cronos' foes are as sophisticated as they are terrifying, so you'll want to respect their complexity with a smart, tactical approach.
In addition to treading lightly, using charged shots, carefully managing resources, and examining behaviors, you'll want to study the battlefield. The game's levels have chokepoints, corners, and obstacles that can be used to your advantage…or disadvantage. Running from a rampaging creep only to discover a dead end in the direction you're heading is never fun.
Enemy fights are frequently chaotic and often unfold in claustrophobic spaces, so knowing the lay of the land is as crucial as anticipating when the next slimy tendril will attempt to tear your face off. It's equally important to know when to weaponize explosive items. Fuel barrels, gas cans, and other combustibles are your best friends during battles, but like bullets and other resources, wasting them can mean the difference between winning and winding up a chunky stain.
Explosive items damage upright threats, but are even more effective against dead enemies. That's because the former can feed off the latter, making themselves far more powerful. With that in mind, you'll want to reserve those flammable resources for downed enemies, lest their power be leeched from those still relentlessly stalking you. Even better, burn a downed creature's corpse in close proximity to living targets to get more bang for your buck.
Along a similar line of thinking, you'll need to be careful not to finish off monsters too close to their friends. While doing so will eliminate threats, it also gives nearby baddies the fuel they need to become stronger. To sum up, don't treat Cronos' explosives like any other "red barrels" begging to be blown up, but rather like a tactical opportunity to turn the tables and survive until the next encounter.
Cronos: The New Dawn is now available on Epic Games Store.