Within the gameplay reveal trailer for Cronos: The New Dawn, a mysterious voice warned the Traveler to “Keep centered, keep cautious”.
Greater than only a little bit of lore, this was meant to speak that in our sport, remaining vigilant is of the utmost significance.
That’s as a result of, along with cautious useful resource administration, you additionally should take care of enemies that may merge with one another throughout battle. This radically alters the dynamic of each encounter, with every Merge exponentially rising its issue in real-time.
To that finish, we made a brief dev diary that particulars how the combat system in Cronos works in observe, whereas additionally addressing a number of key questions from our group:
Escalating threats: How merging transforms your enemies
In Cronos, enemies often called Orphans can soak up useless our bodies to evolve into even stronger and extra resilient foes, full with new assault patterns.
This provides one other layer of complexity to combat, as a result of by killing Orphans you’re successfully offering gas for different close by enemies to evolve and turn out to be extra highly effective within the course of.
Having the Merge as a completely built-in gameplay system essentially shifts the steadiness of combat, particularly in a sport the place ammo is scarce and crafting alternatives are restricted.
Most enemies in Cronos are able to merging with one another. Your objective is to cease them in any respect prices, or take care of the results.
Enviornment Management: Turning the percentages in your favor
The finest technique to counteract the Merge is by stopping it from taking place within the first place. Typically, combat in Cronos requires navigating handcrafted arenas crammed with a number of enemies.
Since merging requires useless our bodies to soak up, spatial consciousness is vital. Area out your kills, lure foes away from fallen our bodies, and be able to interrupt merging makes an attempt mid-fight.
In the case of your gear, you’ll have a whole arsenal at your disposal for each state of affairs. Weapons just like the Javelin, with its rapid-fire capability, are excellent for crowd management. Others, just like the Hammer, deal heavy injury at shut vary – excellent for ending off robust enemies earlier than they’ll merge.
Quickly switching between weapons based on their vary and effectiveness in every state of affairs is vital to gaining the higher hand in combat.
Enemy Roles: Ideas and tips to defeat them
In the case of enemy design, we needed the Orphans to problem gamers in distinct methods by that includes completely different assault patterns and fulfilling particular roles in combat. To take them down effectively, it’s essential to watch their habits and adapt your technique to counter their strikes.
One enemy kind you’ll encounter typically is the Doppelganger. Scattered all through New Daybreak, not all Doppelgangers look or act alike. As a substitute, they are often grouped into completely different classes primarily based on their combat model.
Some are runners, dashing in the direction of the participant to inflict melee injury. Others have ranged assaults, forcing gamers to strategy them as a substitute. Then there are the bruisers, heavy-hitting, sturdy foes who can take in injury and are finest handled utilizing close-range shotgun blasts. And, after all, all of them can merge with one another, gaining new skills and assault patterns with every evolution.
Moreover, there are particular enemies that solely seem in choose areas, however we shall be revealing extra about them in future updates.
That concludes our fast overview of how you can strategy combat in Cronos: The New Daybreak. By way of incorporating the Merge as a central combat mechanic, we purpose to make sure that each encounter within the sport feels each memorable and unpredictable.
This strategy additionally displays our dedication in the direction of evolving the survival horror method itself, by always pushing its boundaries and remodeling what the style can supply.
Cronos: The New Daybreak shall be obtainable on PlayStation 5 in 2025.

