For Better or Worse, Cronos: The Dawn Can't Escape One…

Cronos: The New Dawn continues down a path set forth by giants of the survival horror genre, while putting its own spin on some of the established conventions. Following its success and acclaim with Silent Hill 2 Remake last year, which banished many of the doubts that sometimes surrounded developer Bloober Team previously, the studio then swiftly turned its attention to its next project. Cronos: The New Dawn is a new IP for Bloober, and it more or less marks it moving from indie or AA status firmly to an AAA survival horror studio.

By Bloober's own admission, Cronos: The New Dawn intentionally follows some well-worn but effective patterns, evidenced by the fact that it has specifically mentioned Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 as major inspirations. Both are seminal survival horror games, and Cronos clearly draws much from them. Along with those, though, it also includes a design element that has been seen in tons of other survival horror titles, and one that has been ingrained in the genre to such a degree that it verges on being cliché at this point.

Cronos: The New Dawn Still Has Players Using Boltcutters, For Better or Worse

Cronos New Dawn screenshot inventory screen boltcutters

Boltcutters Have Long Been a Staple of Survival Horror

Going back to the earliest days when the visual and design language of survival horror games was being established, one of the most ubiquitous items found in them was a trusty pair of boltcutters. It's an incredibly mundane item at the end of the day, but admittedly a realistic and useful one, and countless games in the genre have had them over the years. For example, nearly every Resident Evil has had the tool, and they can also be found in most Silent Hill entries. This extends to many others, including recent games like Post Trauma, and Cronos: The New Dawn is no exception.

In many cases, finding a pair of boltcutters in a given survival horror title constitutes its own puzzle or subtask. They are usually necessary for players to acquire in order to access subsequent story locations. Alongside this, they often unlock optional or secret areas. It may in fact be more surprising at this point for players not to have to make use of them somewhere along the line. But that comes with the risk of boltcutters being completely overdone, especially in Cronos: The New Dawn's case.

Cronos: The New Dawn's Reliance on Boltcutters Can Be a Bit Much, Even by Modern Standards

In keeping with tradition, during the opening hours of their mission to travel back in time in search of important people classified as "Essences" before a devastating plague wiped out humanity and horribly warped the survivors, Cronos: The New Dawn's armor-clad protagonist, the Traveler, will find a pair of boltcutters. These are then employed as expected throughout to progress or loot optional rooms. However, their use is arguably made more egregious than normal in Cronos: The New Dawn, due to the placement of safe rooms and the initially quite limited inventory space.

It's overall more efficient to commit to sacrificing a slot for the boltcutters for the entire playthrough, since there are just enough locked doors scattered throughout each level that it ends up being more expedient and convenient to have the boltcutters on hand to access these areas upon finding them, rather than having to backtrack quite a distance to the hub to retrieve them in many instances. The situation is also somewhat ironic in that neither of Cronos: The New Dawn's biggest influences actually had boltcutters, making them rare exceptions, and thus Cronos stands out even more in light of this.

Cronos New Dawn screenshot chained door 2

While the inclusion of boltcutters in survival horror games may boil down to subjectivity in terms of how bothersome or blatantly formulaic they can feel, Cronos: The New Dawn's use of them begs the question of whether the genre at large will eventually find a way to move beyond them, or if they have become such an intrinsic part of the experience that most titles will continue to feel compelled to include them.

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