‘Cronos: The New Dawn is a bit about togetherness and humanity’ – Lead Writer Grzegorz Like on the themes underpinning Bloober Team’s latest foray into horror
There has never been a better time to test the survival instincts of your game than at the moment. Do you think you can climb a mountain with a troop of adorable accidental scouts? There is Culminate. Or, let’s say you want to build a wooden log there? GOOD, Valheim could be the game for you.
However, with so much competition, it can be difficult to stand out. Enter Cronos: The New DawnA horror game traveling in time of the Bloober team, which is inspired by the history of the real world to supervise its world. In Gamescom this year, we sat with the main editor of the project, Grzegorz Like, to discuss the inspirations behind the last incursion of the studio to horror, including the complex past of Poland, Neon Genesis Evangelionand 1982 The thing.
“At one point in the Bloober team, we realized that we are really good to put Poland in the matches,” explains. “We did that in ObserverWe did it in The environmentBut we have never done it on such a large scale. »»
In CronosThe players enter the metallic stompers of a mysterious “ traveler ” whose work consists in surviving in a desolate version of Poland following an event called The Change. While the player searches and harvests the souls of the survivors, they must also navigate between the rifts in time, manage rare resources and push the mutual figures. The world is strange and uncomfortable, with each floor or wind whistle that reminds you how isolated you are.
Cronos is not located in a fantastic region, however, and the game is based on the real world district of Nowa Huta, which is located just outside Central Cracow (the studio attachment base). “The whole district is a communist district which was built just after the war, when Poland was under the influence of the Soviet Union – Dark Times,” says.
“But because of the darkness, we really thought it worked well to link it with the themes that we wanted to approach throughout the game”, as continues. “”Cronos Is it a bit of a question of conviviality and humanity-but the question is, what happens if people come together and something bad happens? »»
The “bad” in question is the aforementioned “change”, a virus that allows “humans” to merge into violent and fleshy monstities. “(In Cronos) Being together is not really a good thing “, like the notes.” In real life in Poland, we supported ourselves against the Soviet Union, and we essentially destroyed the government with solidarity. We wondered, what happens if there was no martial law presented because of the disease? “As refers to the animated cult series Neon Genesis Evangelion, noting a psychological metaphor in which he draws called the” hedgehog dilemma “,” fundamentally, (people) are injured when they get closer “.
Human instrumentality
Despite his heavy nuances, as specified that the team did not try to make radical political statements and that simply staggered them with their own experience, as having grown up in the region. “We knew that [what we had] It was good, but we had to be very soft and aware while telling the story, “as explained.” It’s good when you tell a story like this to have an experience, and the communist origin was really, really rich. “As said.
To give Cronos A personal feeling, the team was not based on new images to create the brutalist setting. Instead of creating images for the location, they rather contacted family members looking for memories of the region of their childhood. “Because we wanted to reproduce the atmosphere of the city, we decided not to generate photos or take photos.” As said. “I showed my mother’s trailer because she still lives there in Nowa Huta, and she was like, what did you do?” Destroy the whole city? ” He joked.
It is easy to understand your reaction, especially given the abandonment Cronos feels in motion. The walls are graffitated, the furniture overturned and all the signs of regular life seem to be muffled. As if to visit the artistic team often to try to modify how the models met. “It was really pain for all 3D artists,” he joked. “”[They’d say] It’s a game. It’s not a museum, “he said.” It’s for me. “”
At the beginning of our demo, we met a babbleman overflowing with disappeared persons, a quick reminder that the bodies of mishaps that we faced once belonged to the ordinary people of the city. Solid World Building, as explained, some of the family members who helped the team with photos, also found themselves like the faces of these missing people. “”[The family members] Everything needed to sign articles and all this, and they are now in the game, ”as explains.
Work in the shadows
However, despite these personal touches, as is not naive for the fact that Cronos is compared to other horror games such as Dead space And resident Evil. “Cronos is our love letter to all these games “, as said.” (But) when creating the new IP, we decided to treat ourselves and create a (game) that will scratch all our itching. »»
Fall from the success of the studio with Remake Silent Hill 2The Bloober team wanted to push in a different direction with Cronos. “We knew we had to do something other than James Sunderland,” says. “This one was very psychological … we also wanted Cronos To be deep, but in a different direction, we therefore thought of different genres and undergenres of horror, and we decided not only science fiction, but also of body horror. “”
During the research phase, as the team found inspiration in the science fiction thriller of John Carpenter in 1982, The thing. “The design of the monsters has been removed from it,” explains. “But, we had to make it work like an opponent in a game, so we also decided to create this fusion system to make it unique for the players.”
While players explore CronosThey will find the remains of society, which the game calls orphans, distorted in strange forms. If you cannot withdraw each enemy tactically, they can combine forces, swelling in a much more threatening enemy – a unique system that forces you to act with intention.
“It’s always nice to have an opponent who does a funny thing by themselves, and you don’t have to know the script of the whole fight – (things) arrives”, like notes. “Very early in the game, you can end up fighting, and it’s not scripted; this is there because you have not played well.”
Cronos: The New Dawn pays tribute to the series of horror games that have come before, infusing this proven methodology with an intriguing enemy system and a cargo of personal traditions. Although we do not know how it will get rid of the launch next week, as we left for a certain wisdom on how to survive. “Be ready and have your weapons recharge, manage your inventory correctly, and everything will be fine – each battle is a puzzle – and of course, read all the notes.”
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