Cronos: The New Dawn pairs single-player survival horror with a journey between a devastated future and 1980s Poland. Enemies can merge if you do not burn their bodies in time, making preparation and ammunition management central to combat. At ≈ $17.53 from GOG, the game is at its tracked historical low. That makes the present opportunity especially relevant if this blend of tactical fights and dark time travel is already on your list, though the decision still comes down to your own plans.At $59.99 from GOG, Cronos: The New Dawn is at its tracked historical low, making this a timely price to consider if its single-player horror already suits your plans.
Microsoft Store+2·Platform:Microsoft Store·~ $59.99Buy now
Newegg+2·Platform:Unknown PC platform·~ $59.99Buy now
All-time low ~ $23.95across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated daily
Historical Low~ $23.992026-10Current Low Across Stores~ $47.99Fanaticalvs. Historical Low+100%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a third-person survival horror game in which you play a Traveler crossing a devastated future in search of time rifts leading to 1980s Poland. Plan your fights, scavenge resources, and use limited ammunition carefully. Fallen creatures can merge and grow stronger, so burn their bodies before that happens. Essences taken from people in the past improve your combat prowess but bring unsettling effects.87% of 8,220 Steam reviews are positive.The game was released on September 5, 2025.
Credits
Developer
Bloober Team
Publisher
Bloober Team SA
Steam player reviews
87%positiveVery Positive8,220 Steam reviews
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$23.992026-10-12 · FFanaticalBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.
Language support
Language
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Subtitles
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Simplified Chinese
Yes
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Traditional Chinese
Yes
Yes
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English
Yes
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French
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Italian
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German
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Spanish
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Japanese
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Korean
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Polish
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Portuguese-Brazil
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Russian
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Steam PC edition data · 2026-11-12
02Before you buy
Play
The Steam PC version is single-player and has full controller support.
Language
English audio is available. Subtitles include English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and both Chinese variants, among other languages.
03Frequently asked questions
Who do you play as?
You play a Traveler working for the Collective, searching a devastated future for time rifts that lead to 1980s-era Poland.
What happens to defeated enemies?
Other creatures can absorb fallen enemies through a process called Merging, making them stronger. Burn the bodies to stop it.
What do Essences do?
The Harvester extracts Essences from people in the past. Carrying more strengthens you in combat, but also affects your perceptions.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviews
Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
i am 37 years old and not many games can hold my attention more than a hour. This game took me 21 hours to beat and i did it in 3 or 4 sittings. Its a very good, solid game and blooper delivered with a cool atmosphere.Show moreShow less
23.3 hours at review355 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This game has so many great ideas that it refuses to explore more than on a surface level. It's not terrible just so very mediocre and by the numbers. You walk around reading a stack of notes and audio logs left behind by people while also gathering resources. You do one or two smaller enemy encounters to whittle down those resources you just collected. You visit a safe room right before a bigger fight so you can use currency and points to upgrade your equipment. Unfortunately the weapon upgrades don't have branching paths or any interesting bonuses to them, it's the "number goes up" type of a deal.
The game draws heavy inspiration from action focused survival horror games like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4. It however doesn't include fun or useful quality of life features like quickturning or a map. There is no separate inventory for quest items. There were multiple times where I had to backtrack to a safe room to store some items or simply waste some bullets so I could pick up the next mcguffin required to proceed. Inventory is very limited and needs to be upgraded with points for more space.
You only have one gun that transforms between different types so why is it that all the different forms take up one more inventory slot? This resulted in me not experimenting with the different variations simply because there wasn't enough space to carry them around.
You can charge your weapons up for more damage but this causes the crosshair to start shaking around violently while the enemy is barreling towards you. This adds a nice risk&reward mechanic that forces you to risk getting hit by the enemy. Character movement is deliberately slow and slightly clunky. Enemies are rather slow so it balances out decently enough.
Enemies aren't very interesting. It's the very trope biomass that deforms people into hideous monstrosities. This type of body horror loses all scare factor when used too much. Almost every area is just goopy flesh walls so it trivializes the horrid nature of the sickness that wiped out the world.
Game includes minor environmental puzzles where you have to route electricity by shooting spikes into a wall. I wish you could charge up these spikes so you could use them to stun enemies during combat or to create electrical traps during fights. The spikes are used on puzzles only and nothing else.
You can also rewind time at certain points of the game. Usually this means uncollapsing a structure so you can walk forward. It also allows you to rewind exploded barrels so you can reuse them during combat. This makes some enemy encounters trivially easy.
There is also gravity defying platforming similar to Dead Space remake but those are at very set points and usually just a way to get the player across longer distances. The gravity shenanigans aren't used in any interesting way, simply to get player across floating platforms in a boring void. Towards the end of the game there is a glimpse of what could have been when you get to fight upside down against some enemies.
The enemies themselves can merge with dead bodies becoming more powerful but this was rarely an issue. It did put nice pressure on the player during some of the early fights in the game when guns aren't as powerful and ammo is scarce. Later on this whole thing is trivialized by your powerful guns and the abundance of explosive canisters in nearly every big arena you fight in. You can also reuse the explosive canisters by rewinding time to reconstruct them.
WHOEVER WAS IN CHARGE OF APPROVING THE FOLLOWING ENEMY DESIGNS NEEDS TO BE PUT IN THE NAUGHTY CORNER! It is as if they tried to take the worst types of enemies from other games. Exploding acid blisters that are hidden behind corners or on walls. They can be shot to pop them or triggered by going near them for a second and running away. They spew acid on the floor forcing you to wait for a moment before proceeding. There are also tiny crawling explosive acid enemies that crawl towards you, explode if you get too close and jump at you exploding at contact. Worst ones are the wall enemies that quickly grab you forcing you to complete a quick time event to break free. Very often they are placed in very cheap spots or trigger when you pick up resources from a certain spot. Did they not listen to any of the playtesters since I can't fathom anyone enjoying these miserable time wasting traps.
The game has a poor balance between resource gathering and combat. There is too much snooping around for ammo and not enough situations to use said ammo. Whenever the game showed me a hallucination of a massive enemy horde I was ecstatic "FINALLY A BIG FIGHT!" only to make all the enemies vanish.
Boss fights early on are alright and those types become standard enemies later as is typical. Closer to the end of the game there are two boss fights almost back to back and both are such annoying ordeals to slog through. Acid spitting one liner repeating flesh totem with wall blisters that need to be popped and a teleporting bastard that has nearly unavoidable attacks. The final boss has two cutscenes right before you encounter him and thankfully you can skip those.
The performance of the game was all over the place. Lots of moments where it was stuttering and dropping FPS. I haven't tried the game on the Steam Deck yet but I'm very sceptical about them getting it Verified when it runs this poorly on a gaming PC on medium graphics (with DLSS on ultra performance setting).
I would recommend picking this up from a 50-75% sale if you're really thirsty for some third person shooting. Just don't expect to do that much shooting.Show moreShow less
14.9 hours at review260 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
This game is peak, and it is a shame people are passing it up for nit-picky reasons. From what I've seen, there's 2 reasons people are passing it up.
1. Performance
Solution 1 - I recommend watching this optimization guide by Benchmarking. He breaks down each graphics setting, and how much they affect performance. He even has a solution for people with only 8GB of Vram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyYFz1PZ_PM
Solution 2 - This is one I did not see in the guide above. Use dynamic resolution scaling. You can set it to lock your FPS at 60. Your game may get fuzzy at intense periods, but it will stay smooth.
2. Difficulty: I see people complaining about ammo and resources.
Solution 1 - CHARGE YOUR SHOTS. There are only two situations you should ever use an uncharged shot: shooting a barrel, or shooting the little green guys that explode. Every other situation though? Charge your shots. It is free massive damage for the same amount of ammo.
Solution 2 - Upgrade your inventory first. Inventory is crucial in this game. You will be managing it. A lot. More inventory means more ammo. More ammo means more dead enemies. You can upgrade suit integrity later. The game is not that hard.
Why I love this game:
This is one of the few survival horror games that actually make you manage and consider your inventory. Most other survival horror games seem to just hamstring the inventory management system since it is expected. But it always becomes trivial and pointless. Not here. For the most part, Bloober nailed it.
The story is actually good. I'd give it a solid A-. The story and setting keep me invested, wanting to play more so I learn more. Also, the voice acting is great (some of the cut scenes can be a bit melodramatic, though), the atmosphere is thick, and the gun play is fun but very tense. Speaking of tense...
The game is tense, not scary. There's very little in cheap scares. Don't think that since they did the Silent Hill 2 remake that this will be horrifying. This is not Silent Hill. The thrill is more akin to Dead Space and Resident Evil. The anxiety comes from low resource and ammo supplies. You will feel every missed shot and every healing item you waste. It is entirely possible to run out of ammo if you mess up. And I put emphasis on YOU messing up. The game is fair, you just have to pay attention. If you play this like Call of Duty, you will not have any fun.Show moreShow less
13.8 hours at review297 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
this game is the epitome of "mediocre" . you keep waiting for something interesting with the story to happen but it just keeps dragging on and on and on and on. i seriously wish i could refund it but i kept playing hoping that at least late game or the end would be some kind of big pay off. nope. just super lame. you spend 90% of this game walking through dark hallways and rooms picking up resources, the rest of the 10% is combat related. which would normally be fine if there were some really cool story things happening but the bread crumbs are so small and so spread out that nothing really feels impactfull. visually the game is cool, the aesthetics are pretty unique but the back drop of the story and the end of the game makes it all feel so hollowShow moreShow less
21.1 hours at review242 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
[h3 ]This isn't a "fully recommended game" I'd suggest for anyone to play. Is it fun? At times, sure. Is the story interesting? Parts of it, sure. And I like what the devs are trying to do. But this game feels more like a series of ideas and mechanics that aren't fully fleshed out.
Gameplay is a hit or miss. I like the idea of having super scarce ammo. This takes me back to Silent Hill and old RE games. Survival Horror should feel like you're surviving. But the actual gameplay mechanics aren't satisfying to chase.
Take ammo management. Enemies will rarely drop ammo if you're out of resources. Reloading to a safety save before a big fight is sometimes necessary if you took too much damage or wasted too many resources.
But wait! Ammo and health items are cheap, right? Well, yes and no. Yes, you can buy those resources for fairly cheap, but when you're hoarding energy to upgrade guns to allow you more efficiency at clearing rooms, and the fact that enemies very rarely drop any resources, you're much more willing to save scum, rather than rely on RNG or looting. And even then, some systems feel like they weren't fully designed until much later.
Take the Torch Fuel. You can buy an upgrade where you can carry (2) Torch Fuels in your inventory and craft two for the price of one. Sounds nifty, right? Even better is how some save rooms have a locker that will infinitely respawn Torch Fuel. So if you need to clear out a room or use it to solve a puzzle, you have options.
The problem?
The locker that spawns infinite Torch Fuel doesn't allow you to pick up more than one stack of the item; meaning, if you wasted energy resources to upgrade your character to be able to craft/hold two Torch Fuel, the game refuses to give you more than one from this free locker, even though your character can hold two of the same item. Unless you're crafting and using resources during combat or find the super-rare Torch Fuel laying around as a resource, you're constantly running back and forth between the safe room and whatever you're clearing out to incrementally clear out enemies and solve puzzles. I don't know why the devs didn't allow you to be able to pick up two resources from this free locker when it's willing to give you one for free every time you visit it, as long as you're not carrying one.
A lot of little design choices creep in that feel frustrating upon reflection. You're looting the world that has been destroyed, so occasionally, you'll find a photo camera you can sell for energy. Makes sense that an old-world relic might be worth something. But by the time you find the 3rd photo camera to sell, it breaks immersion when you're wondering why there's a limited pool of items you're looting to sell. And even then, they don't feel meaningful. Like, selling a heater? Sure, that's neat. Not sure why this is valuable to the collective. Do they need the parts or something?
Enemies can be tethered to some rooms, and the AI can break if you leave a room, having them sometimes stand still and not react to your gunshots.
Limited inventory feels like it would be challenging and add a layer of difficulty and realism to the gameplay, but it's mostly their to hamper your progress. You're mostly going to be carrying your tools, weapons, ammo, and health, which funnily enough, fills up almost all of your free space. There's no incentive to upgrade health or other resources when you're constantly running out of space or needing to make room. Your only goal is to upgrade damage, stability, charge speed, and inventory space; everything else is a luxury.
Also, given how rarely you're given items or materials, why are there items boxes with nothing inside? It's not uncommon to have your inventory near empty, find two item boxes that drop nothing. Given there's no difficulty setting, you figure that all items or boxes have been tailored due to player inventory or before hand, but truth is, it isn't. Sometimes you'll find ammo when you don't need it and other times you'll find nothing when you do, which makes you want to save scum more just to avoid these situations.
With the story, it's a bit of a hit or a miss. Your character is monotone and is dedicated to whatever their objective is, learning more of the world. But we're not really given context on the Collective outside of notes we find. When you eventually meet some human characters , they feel a bit too "outlandish" and unrealistic, feeling they're trying to go for an Oscar rather than telling a story. The game also doesn't allow you to skip the slow-delivery of some dialogue during some conversations, which makes it grating speaking to some characters. Like, hurry the eff up, we're wasting time here!
And that's probably the biggest grip I have with the story. It needs to TELL you what's happening instead of showing it, or allowing you to make those discoveries or connections yourself.
There's a good game buried beneath the design choices. But this game wants to be like old-school survival horror, but at the same time, borrow gameplay design elements from newer games, such as the Resident Evil remakes and more. But because the game struggles to pick a lane, it tries to be the best of "both worlds" without excelling at either option.
At the best of times, this game felt like a more interesting version of the "Callisto Protocol." But at its worst, it also, ironically, felt like the bad choices made behind the same game, "Callisto Protocol." It reminds me of the design choices they made for The Medium, or the Silent Hill 2 Remake. They didn't want to go overboard and wanted to stay faithful with the genre and not add newer mechanics found in competitor games, but now when they have their own IP, they make the same decisions gameplay-wise, from game to game? It's confusing.Show moreShow less
10.6 hours at review292 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I really wanted to like this game as a new survival horror IP on the block, but it irritated me more often than not. The setting and story are *aggressively* generic, with bog-standard science-fiction proper nouns everywhere. The Traveler. The Awakening. The Essence. The Terminal. The Orphans. The Talos Protocol. The Lazarus Protocol. The Collective. The Warden. The Pathfinder. It goes on and on, and it never amounts to anything very compelling. Without going into spoilers, the game's setting and story have a couple of mildly interesting elements, until it decides to scrap *all of it* later on and be about something else entirely. And the ending sucks, even the "true" one.
The game really wears out its welcome. The pacing of the gameplay, the story, even the spoken dialogue is absolutely glacial. No sentence is ever finished in ten seconds that can't be drawn out to twenty, and there's so much unnecessary padding throughout the gameplay, so many generic locations with repeated elements that add nothing. There's a section near the middle where you have to restore power to a train you've already restored before, a full on forty-minute slog to turn on two generators with multiple large enemy encounters and zero plot progression, and the devs had the gall to have the protagonist say out loud "This is getting repetitive." Yeah, devs, it is! That's your cue that maybe you should have cut that part! You're not "in on the joke", you're bad at designing games!
The game just goes on and on, especially towards the end. The gameplay itself is servicable which doesn't warrant much praise considering how it's just aping better franchises, but it's just too bloated, generic, self-serious, poorly paced and poorly written to be anything but a slog to play through.Show moreShow less
36.1 hours at review188 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
After 15.8 hours I have completed my playthrough of Cronos The New Dawn and I must say, this game surprised me! I had an amazing adventure through the world of Cronos that was filled with a bunch of pros and cons, so lets go over them.
PROS:
Graphics - Cronos is gorgeous. Literally, every aspect of this game is incredible looking. From the locations, to the enemies, to the player characters and NPC's, everything is highly detailed, fits the world and is truly fantastic to look at. I kept taking screenshots as I was playing through the game because I couldn't believe how good it looked.
Level Design - This game features fantastic level design. Truly so much to explore, shortcuts to find, vertical leveling with the gravity boots, it has it all. As you explore the areas and find secret rooms, collectibles (theres alot) etc, multiple weapons. Truly great design.
Sound Design - This game features fantastic sound design which is extremely neccessary for a horror game. The simple yet detailed sounds that keep you on edge as you explore the world are fantastic. The music is great as well (think stranger things style music) and overall its done beautifully.
Gameplay - Cronos features fantastic gameplay. It truly brings survival horror to the forefront. This is not an action game in the slightest. It has moments where it can "feel" action, but you are barely given any ammo, have limited weaponry and must strategize almost every encounter. The enemies who are living will absorb other enemies who are dead or killed turning them into super enemies if you allow them to, so you must always be on edge. A great upgrade system for your weapons and suit, similiar to dead space. Fantastic bosses that are fun and challenging (especially the last two). The enviornment also plays a huge factor in this game and how you approach enemies. Overall the gameplay is solid and I enjoyed it.
Enemy Design - As mentioned in gameplay, Cronos features some pretty fun badass enemies. They are admittingly limited in scope, but thats because they can transform if you dont play effectively. Theres enough enemies here in variety to make it super fun without getting dull.
Weapon Design - The weapons in the game are super fun. They have 2 modes of fire each usually, resulting in different strategies you can use with them. You wont be able to upgrade every weapon in one playthrough, so choose your upgrades wisely.
Story - Cronos has a very interesting, very ambigious story that will keep you hooked all the way to the end. You can make choices in the game that will effect your outcome, so this is a narrative experience that can be played multiple times for different endings which increases replayability.
CONS:
Inventory System - So this game is a true survival horror, it has limited inventory, limited resources. Nothing wrong with this at all. Whats wrong is how extreme it goes with it at the start of the game, almost forcing you to choose inventory space upgrade with your suit cores first over anything else. It removes the choice from the player because otherwise, you will be extremely limited. Also, the game has valuables you can sell that you pick up through the world, but you can only sell it at the save areas. The problem with is, by the time you reach the save area, you will probably have had to get rid of the valuable to make space for something more important to your gameplay before reaching the station. It can be pretty dam annoying at the start of the game, almost too annoying. I managed to get through it with relative ease, but I felt like my choices as a player was made for me, instead of the other way around if that makes sense.
Horrible Turn Speed - So the main character is obviously in a heavy suit of armor, i get this. Shes going to be very slow. The problem is shes extremely slow, even with maximum mouse turn speed, she is turning slower than anything ive ever seen. Even in dead space it was not this bad and I never had to up my mouse turn to max for that game. This game I am at maximum turn and it feels like i didnt change anything. If you are trying to sell the idea of a tanky slow main character fine, but its frustrating as a mouse and keyboard player to feel that level of slowness when you have an option to increase it and it barely does anything.
The map system - The GPS system in this game tries to be similiar to dead space, but it doesnt give you a blue trajectory line. It actually doesnt give you anything other than the mark at the top of the compass showing you a general direction. The system is pretty bad to be honest, i would rather there be almost no system because it really doesnt help you much in the game. There is no actual map, so i just personally wish they went all in on a no map style game. Regardless, small con.
Over reliance on horror tropes: So after having played a couple of games from Blooper, i can confidently say they overly rely on jump scares and horror tropes. This game didnt feel scary at all very much. It was super predictable in every aspect of the horror and more so felt like a psychological thriller than anything else. This game and their jump scares is freaking ridiculous. Towards the end they start spamming it and im just sitting here like...dude stop it thats dumb and predictable. Blooper NAILS the setting, the music, the atmosphere but when it comes to the horror, they play it safe, no risks and very little real fear.
Overall Cronos is still an incredible game and a fun experience that I might want to do one more play through of just to get a little more. I highly recommend it based on the above pros and cons in its current form at the time of the review.
If you want to see my entire play through of Cronos: The New Dawn you can check out my you tube channel Hypnotic Gaming LIVE.
Thanks for reading.Show moreShow less
15.8 hours at review246 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Performance:
The performance is the biggest issue. Stuttering and severe FPS drops happen in some areas, even though I’m running the game on a 4090 with 7800x3d. With this kind of hardware, I shouldn’t have performance problems, but unfortunately, it suffers from the same issues as Silent Hill 2—it's a mix of Unreal Engine 5 struggles and poor optimization from the developers, and that’s unacceptable.
Story & Presentation:
I actually enjoyed the story, the level design, and the voice acting. Those aspects were well done and kept me invested.
Gameplay:
The gameplay, however, was disappointing. The beginning is strong—you need to be careful with your shots, conserve ammo, and manage inventory. But in the second half, the pacing falls apart. The game just throws waves of enemies at you, one after another, purely for the sake of difficulty. That isn’t good design. On top of that, recycled boss fights make the experience feel repetitive, boring, and lazy.Show moreShow less
17 hours at review171 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Graphics
The game looks really solid visually. I kept asking myself multiple times: how is this only 20GB?!
Gameplay
Overall, the gameplay doesn’t differ much from similar titles, but the Merge system is a standout: enemies can absorb corpses of fallen foes and merge with them, doubling their health. To prevent this, you have to burn the bodies so nothing remains on the ground.
Combat
Combat can be broken down into four parts:
• Gunplay: Excellent and satisfying.
• Environmental Tools: Explosive barrels and fire canisters in arenas let you blow enemies into the air.
• Equipment: Mainly used to slow enemies or finish them off when they’re low on health.
• Melee: Unfortunately very weak and symbolic. No dodge, block, or parry; if you run out of ammo, you’re in serious trouble.
Enemies, Weapons & Bosses
Weapon variety is solid (not all weapons are story-based; some are found off the main path) and fun to use, though the shotgun could’ve been better. Enemy variety is great, and bosses are amazing. Even with some pattern repetition, fights are exciting, intense, and visually impressive.
Side Content
The game doesn’t have side quests, but optional paths are extremely worth exploring. They extend playtime and reward you with upgrades, ammo, and even new weapons.
Upgrade System
Upgrades cover armor, equipment (for burning enemies), and weapons.
• Armor and equipment require rare Cores.
• Weapons need Energy, which is plentiful throughout the game, though upgrades are expensive.
Collectibles called Valuables can be sold for extra Energy. The system is impactful and rewarding.
Music
Surprisingly sparse, but when it plays, it’s fantastic. I just wish there was more of it.
Technical Performance
Most of the game runs smoothly, but some areas—especially early zones—have frame drops and stuttering.
Final Thoughts
Without a doubt, Cronos: The New Dawn is one of the best games of 2025 so far and perfect for fans of Dead Space. I truly loved every moment with it.Show moreShow less
9.1 hours at review240 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Pretty fun game, But entirely held back by UE5 performance.
After traveling a certain distance, instead of a loading screen, your FPS will tank by 60-80% as the engine streams in all the new assets.
Can't recommend at anything over $20-$30 given the performance issues.
If you're running a 50 series card [or 12gb VRAM with upscaling] and high end CPU, you'll be able to brute force through UE5 [um ackshually, we should blame the devs and not the tool.] and maintain a stable framerate.
It's just the same old same old, and its tiresome.
Been trending this way since upscaling became the new industry standard to cut corners on optimization.
-Updated / edited for clarity.Show moreShow less
5.4 hours at review118 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.
GOG, the game is at its tracked historical low. That makes the present opportunity especially relevant if this blend of tactical fights and dark time travel is already on your list, though the decision still comes down to your own plans. At $59.99 from 
