What to know
- Cronos: The New Dawn is a third‑person survival horror game from Bloober Team featuring “the Traveler” as the main character.
- The Traveler is a masked female agent sent by a mysterious Collective to rescue people in 1980s Poland amid a catastrophic event called “The Change.”
- Gameplay emphasizes strategic resource use, burning defeated enemies to stop them from merging into tougher monsters.
- The game launched on 5 September 2025 across major platforms, with Deluxe Edition offering early access and bonuses.
In Cronos: The New Dawn, The Traveler is at once your avatar and a narrative device—faceless, silent, burdened. You’re not just fighting monsters; you’re carrying hope and identity across time, while grappling with the moral—and mental—weight of the souls you save.
Who is the Main Character, the Traveler?
You embody the Traveler, a mysterious and heavily armored agent sent by a shadowy organization known as the Collective. You never remove your helmet or show your face, keeping the Traveler enigmatic and emotionally distant at first. She’s described alternately as “stoic,” “faceless,” and “armored,” moving with noticeable heft that underscores vulnerability.

What drives the Traveler's mission
From a ravaged future, you travel back to 1980s Poland—a brutalist, dystopian Nowa Huta—to extract souls of key individuals before they vanish in “The Change,” a cataclysm that spawned mutated beings called Orphans. Along the way, you use a device, the Harvester, to pull souls from the past. These choices affect the storyline—but carrying souls comes at a psychological cost, haunting you as you play on.

Here's a quick breakdown of The Traveller in Cronos: The New Dawn.
| Element | Details |
|---|---|
| Character | The Traveler (mysterious, faceless agent) |
| Role | Operative of the Collective, sent to alter the past |
| Key tool | The Harvester (extracts souls) |
| Primary objective | Rescue souls in 1980s Poland to save the future |
| Combat mechanics | Prevent merging of enemies by burning corpses |
| Emotional impact | Haunting psychological effects from carrying souls |
| Narrative tone | Stoic, enigmatic—more concept than character |
Game Mechanics Tied to the Traveler’s role
You face Orphans—grotesque beings that, if not properly disposed of (particularly by burning), will merge into more formidable foes. Your toolkit includes firearms like pistols and shotguns, melee moves, resource management, gravity-altering mechanics, and strategic burning of enemies.

Bloober Team pivots from psychological horror remakes (like Silent Hill 2) toward action‑oriented survival horror rooted in their own original IP. The Traveler—a female protagonist—was chosen not for politics, but because developers found her “more interesting”. They also integrate rich Polish cultural and historical context—setting the game in Nowa Huta, an industrial district symbolic of Soviet-era collectivism turned isolation and infection.
The gameplay blurs genres, drawing from classics such as Resident Evil, Dead Space, Alien, The Thing, and even Blade Runner—a fusion of horror, sci-fi, and time travel that feels fresh.

Platform availability and editions
You can play Cronos: The New Dawn starting 5 September 2025, on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and macOS. A Deluxe Edition gives early (48-hour) access plus extra resources, skins, artbook, soundtrack, and more. Here's what you can expect the pricing to be like.
| Edition | Price (approx.) | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | ~£49.99 | Base game |
| Deluxe | ~£59.99 | Early access, bonus ammo, skins, artbook, soundtrack, energy, extra items (cronosnewdawn.com) |
Cronos: The New Dawn lets you connect with a character who evolves from an impersonal agent into someone haunted, burdened—and possibly transformed by her mission. Her facelessness invites you to project and empathize while the morally fraught choices—whom to save, what to burn, how many souls you carry—offer deep engagement and replay value. She is more than a character: she is the lens through which you experience this chilling world.
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