Cronos: The New Dawn Turns Nowa Huta Into a Sci-Fi Horror Playground

Bloober Team has launched Cronos: The New Dawn, a new survival horror game set in New Dawn, a fictional city modeled closely after the Polish city of Nowa Huta. The game is the studio’s first original horror IP since The Medium, and its creative direction pulls heavily from the childhood experiences of lead writer Grzegorz Like, who grew up in Nowa Huta and was a strong advocate for making it the basis of the game’s world.

The setting is bleak and unsettling, yet it feels alive. As players explore the apartment blocks, hospitals, abbeys, and steelworks of New Dawn, the impression is not of a place abandoned long ago but one suddenly left behind. Christmas trees stand decorated, desks remain scattered with notes, and graffiti from angry citizens marks the walls. The environment feels inhabited by its history and its people, even when they are nowhere to be seen.

As explained, the idea began with a single image: a suited astronaut wandering an environment where such attire looked absurd.

"It started with the vision of this weird-suited astronaut, a diver even, in an environment that is absolutely awkward for being in a space suit," — Grzegorz Like.

Read Cronos: The New Dawn review recap from a major media outlet.

That vision evolved into the Traveler, the player’s character, who wears a distinctive Dive Suit as they navigate the devastated city. Bloober Team experimented with rural settings early in development but eventually found the communist-era architecture of Nowa Huta a perfect match for what Like described as a “cassette futurism” aesthetic. The contrast between the futuristic suit and the blockhouse apartments was precisely the kind of tension the team wanted to build upon.

Nowa Huta itself played a significant role in shaping the game’s tone. The real city was created as a symbol of hope after World War II, drawing tens of thousands of workers, including Like’s own grandparents, to its steelworks. But by the 1980s, it had become a place of unrest and disillusionment. In Cronos, that history is mirrored by the steel mill at the center of New Dawn, where growing unease among the city’s population becomes apparent in letters, graffiti, and evidence of civil strife.

The game is set on Christmas Eve 1981, a date chosen deliberately. Like said the holiday backdrop highlights the pain of isolation during quarantine, when gatherings are banned. The narrative draws from Poland’s history, particularly the imposition of martial law in the early ’80s, which kept workers and students indoors under curfew.

"People started to get together, they started the solidarity movement, and the government panicked," Like explained. "So they locked up everyone in their homes. There were hours you can't go out, just to keep the students and the workers at home and prevent them from gathering."

Cronos reimagines that moment by asking what might have happened if the lockdowns were not political tools but responses to a genuine threat. The result is a tense, oppressive atmosphere in which the danger outside is as real as the unease within.

Players must survive in this setting with limited resources. Combat is intentionally difficult, but it is not designed as a Souls-like where reflexes dominate. Instead, preparation is key. Success in fights depends on readiness, crafting, and awareness of the environment, with encounters functioning as much like action puzzles as traditional battles.

Like admitted that the difficulty initially worried him when he heard comparisons to FromSoftware’s games. But he emphasized that Cronos rewards players who approach each conflict with patience and planning rather than constant dodging and swordplay. For players who might feel daunted, his advice is simple: roleplay.

"My advice, if you think that the challenge is too big for you, well, roleplay," he said. "Because the Travelers are awesome, and they wouldn't falter. So if I roleplay, it's all fine. It's cool. I'm a Polish Mandalorian, and it works."z

The game’s Christmas setting, coupled with the depiction of unrest and surveillance, reinforces its themes of longing, confinement, and resilience. At the same time, the environment is grim. As noted that it was also an opportunity to showcase moments of kindness and solidarity amid crisis.

Cronos: The New Dawn represents Bloober Team’s ongoing effort to weave Polish identity into its projects, continuing the studio’s trend of using its homeland as a foundation for horror storytelling. For Like, seeing Nowa Huta reimagined in this way was both surprising and deeply personal.

"I wanted to create that game, because Nowa Huta is a very interesting place, but it's also a place with a very dark history," he said.

Decades after the city’s darkest moments, the real Nowa Huta has changed significantly.

"Now, Nowa Huta is thriving, and they're even making games about it!" Like remarked.

Cronos: The New Dawn is available now on PC and consoles, inviting players to step into a nightmarish reimagining of Poland’s past through the eyes of a stranded traveler in a Dive Suit.