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 and high end CPU, you'll be able to brute force through UE5 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.

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.

Some of the worst use of upscaling I've seen. Environment is incredibly blurry and pixelated. Weapons are not very punchy and combat doesn't feel good. Even the starting gun in dead space is great throughout the entire game. Meanwhile, the starting handgun in this game just feels terrible. The world isn't unique or captivating enough to excite me, it just feels like a mash up of control dead space and silent hill but without the really great elements of each. This was one of the games I was looking forward to most this year and it's sad to have to refund it, but it is not worth the money in its current state. Edit: Some of the responses to this review are hilarious. Average horror game is 7-12 hours. Steam return window is 2 hours. If a game hasn't grabbed me within the first 30 minutes it has never grabbed me after. This isn't a game like Path of Exile or a MMO where "true game begins at end game." This is a linear, story based horror game. I have played numerous times every Resident Evil game, every Dead Space game, Silent Hill 2 Remake was a blast. I love horror, I especially love space horror. What this game does not have is engaging combat. And the world was not unique enough to keep me wanting to immerse myself in the world. The sound design alone in some games is enough to hook me. This was a swing and a miss. I was playing on a 4070ti, no potato. Having just finished MGS3 and seeing the beauty of that game, it was so hard to see the garbage textures in this game. The blood effects alone are PS3 era. There are numerous games that the starting handgun is top notch and has a great feel to it. This is not one of them. Coming off of Silent Hill 2 Remake, I had more faith in Bloober. This to me is another Callisto Protocol. Huge disappointment. If you feel otherwise, great. Spend your money on it. I requested a refund because it's not worth mine. Also, devs -- i pre-ordered and got the deluxe version. I upgraded the pistol as much as I could and it felt like trash. I've also read numerous reviews where other people are also frustrated expending all of their ammo on a single enemy. Maybe take that as a real consideration instead of just brushing it off. Silent Hill you can run past enemies. Not so doable in tight corridors like Cronos. For the love of god, learn how to make a bullet impact have a real effect and not feel like a pea shooter.

Bloober team cooked hard with this one I haven't played a horror game this grand and this innovative since Alan wake 2. I had zero expectation from this. I thought it's gonna be a mix a deadspace and resident evil and I would be totally fine with that but it wasn't. Cronos is not something that just copies from the best, It evolves them. I don't care what people may think about this game but for me it's one of the best games of this year and one the best horror games ever created. Gameplay: Lots of weapons, some of them are secret but not that hard to find, you can upgrade them. Weapons feel great and powerful, switching between them is very fast and one of the core aspects of gameplay cause it's way faster than reloading. you get a standard pistol, shotgun, rifle and some more that I won't spoil it for you. you have a basic melee punch and a stomp for when you run out of ammo but don't rely on them too much, they're not very powerful. game is hard, no easy mode, low resources, low health, your character is heavy and it's hard to runaway but there are alot of upgrades for your character and tools and weapons that help you manage the difficulty. there is NG+ and hard mode after you beat the game. I wish we had a dodge to make some fights easier but maybe that was an intentional decision by devs. it has everything you want from a great survivor horror game. level design is awesome, beautiful and terrifying, some of the bests I've seen in this genre. Classic item management, secret doors for items, guns and upgrades, intense fights, so many great scary moments, great monster designs, fantastic boss fights especially the last 2. This game had one of the most creative and coolest final boss I've ever seen in a shooter game not just a horror. Graphics are great, it's unreal 5 so visuals are nice obviously. Great lighting, terrific character designs, so many interesting places and levels that make you have nightmares for days. but there are performance issues so beware. I think it needs a few patches cause in some areas especially the end game sections and final bosses, we have alot of fps drops, also there are massive fps drops when you stomp a dead body and there are alot of stutters. Absolutely play it on SSD and I recommend to have atleast a RTX 20 series or it's equivalent to have a great experience but I'm sure there will be patches to make it more smooth (as I'm writing this a 4.7 GB day1 pacth got released and I'll edit this section when things change and get better) sound design is perfect, game messes with your sanity just with sound alone. You have to experience it for yourself to understand what I'm saying. I prefer to not talk about story to avoid spoilers. I loved it, it was sad and shocking, make sure to read notes cause they add alot of context to the events and characters but it's fine if you don't care. the story is exactly what a game story should be, it has cool and cinematic moments but its main purpose should be always to give more meaning to the gameplay and it's world which Cronos does that job perfectly. TLDR: Best horror game of this generation, so many creative level designs and fights. fantastic atmosphere, bloober team keeps cooking and no one can stop them, can't wait for silent hill 1 remake. SUCH IS OUR CALLING

UPDATE AFTER FINISHING THE GAME: i think it is still a good game. bit of a confusing story line, but a good game. you need to be a big fan of this genre and not a casual enjoyer. i still wish there was a dodge mechanic, especially on the last fight. the last boss is absolutely atrocious. performance is not great, but also not bad. could be worse given all the issues with UE5. good job, Bloober. ------------------------------------------------------------- it's a good game, but not what I expected. it's the true definition of a hardcore survival horror game. the lack of resources is a little extreme to be honest, and the fact that there is NO DODGE mechanic is also annoying as hell. you give zero ammo but don't let me dodge attacks? if you'ere a true fan of games like this, then yes, play this game. if you're a casual fan of this genre and play Silent Hill or Resident Evil on easy mode, then no, this game is not for you. keep it up Bloober. add a goddamn doge mechanic please.

I really like the game. I love the world building. I really like the combat. The narrative is very interesting and I can't wait to unravel more of the it. But whoever made the decision to implement the napalm economy in the current state should be put in the purgatory of runinning to the napalm dispenser and back for the eternity. Just use the dead space stasis mechanic (passive 1 charge re-charge and consumable/station refills full). World will be a better place. When (if?) this will be patched out I'll change the review. Otherwise, I'm sorry. You've been warned: - napalm needed for enviromental puzzles and combat, deals damage, staggers enemies, burns bodies (enemies can consume bodies to grow bigger so you dont want to have a bunch of bodies around). - you have 1 charge by default - buy upgrade called "+1 capacity and fabrication for napalm" - napalm dispensers still give you 1 charge and refuse to give more - upgrade only applies to "consumable" napalm recharge that you need to craft (It's very limited) - there is no passive regen for even one charge - proceed to kill 2-3 enemies and then run back to nearest napalm dispenser because why wouldn't you? (you need to burn the bodies after all, or at least have a combat flamestrike available for the NEXT combat don't you?) - stop thinking about playing the game, >>think were is the nearest napalm dispenser<<. I'm sorry, but this single feature is ruining it for me. Every time I'm using napalm and I don't go back to dispenser to refill I feel like I'm crippling myself. It drives me nuts that single charge is not recharging passively over 30 (or 60 or even 90 sec). I'm even more mad that I upgraded the bloody thing and recharge station is still not giving me the cap for the flamer uses. Maybe I'm a little hysteric, but there is no point in current system. It just wastes time and breaks immersion. It just makes you run back over and over again or risk it for no reason. I really want to love this game. Please make this one change... Also melee is useless, don't bother even. Cheers Gamers

Lowest settings & DLSS set to Quality and Frame gen on. 20fps max. Unbelivable. I have a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 8 GB , AMD Ryzen 5700X 8-Core Processor, 32 GB RAM

No FOV slider and the default FOV is extremely narrow, unfortunately I can not play this game. I'm sure the absence of FOV settings is an artistic choice, but there is quite a significant amount of players who get sick and will not able to play this game, which is a shame cause it looks really interesting.

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.

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 hollow

Played on Mouse and Keyboard. Controller appear to be Broken with several inputs not registering properly. Game Officially recommends Controller I really want to like this one, the setting is immaculate, sound design is absolutely on point. The opening hour of the game are Incredible at building tension, and the initial enemy reveal was done Beautifully. Unfortunately that's where the good stopped for me. I don't know if I just got bad RNG. But in the 3 hours or so, I've found maybe a total of 25 bullets. Not missing a single shot its 3 charged shots to kill an enemy, but there's such a heavy artificial weapon sway that for every 3 shots I hit, one or two miss. The combat gets in the way. I love hard, I love gritty "Every shot count" tension. One of my favorite survival shooters that does this well is is Metro 2033, which I've completion on Hardcore Ranger mode. Looting every little scrap and finding clever ways to deal with enemies to save even a single bullet, with the threat that one mistake and I die and it's over. The challenge was always exhilarating. Recently also completed Resident Evil Biohazard on Permadeath mode, as well as the recent Deadspace remake in the leadup to the release. That balance is not found here. I'm constantly having to Buy or Craft every piece of ammo i physically can, and still running out Every Single Encounter. I've died more in the first 3 hours than I did in the same time in Dark Souls 1. That's just not fun. The oppressive tension of never having enough of anything to progress is too constant. When its all pull no push its numbing. Enemies lost their Fear factor Very quickly due to this and instead became a headache. Can't comment in the story, as I did not get far enough in to have much understanding of any narrative aside from Theres a Virus, I have an Anchor, looking for an Anomoly. Got locked into an inescapable auto-save death loop and put down the game. EDIT - I will be picking the game back up after completing some other games releasing using some tips from the folks in the comments. I REALLY want to know what happened in this world, and Everything aside from the never having any bullets is perfect. Hopefully I will have better RNG on my next run.

I'm not the greatest gamer, but this game beat me at the 2nd enemy. I've been trying different ways to kill it for over an hour but just keep dying. And due to the save system it takes me about 5 minutes just to get to the spot, and die! I've never experienced anything like this in my gaming before...... And we're looking at over 40 years of gaming. The combat is terrible and not fun. I like a challenge but also want to feel like a baddass, but I just feel frustrated! Plays well on the Steamdeck though.

As someone from Kraków, I can confirm - This is how our average day looks like.

- The game in unplayable like it is now, even when standing still the FPS goes from 60 fps to 40 fps, very bad optimization for some average graphics. I can play with 40 fps - 50 fps but there are like every 2 mins lag spikes (5 seconds or more). - In the new areas it needs to load a lot, so for like 5 mins I will have 20 - 25 FPS, then going back up to 90 FPS, right when a smile will form on my face, the game starts going back again to like 70 - 60 FPS, in the same location, with barely any movement in the background. !! THIS GAME IS A MESS !! I WAIT FOR SOME FIXES !! This is why I play only Resident Evil games and indie games, the awful new games are made just 5080, wow amazing, good job !!! ...I have RTX 3070 8 GB... - But the game for what I played is made in my style, so I like it very much, I will come back later, maybe after some patches, - The graphics, gameplay, story are fine enough !

I fear that, both in commercial and critical reception, Cronos may be destined for an undesired fate. While some of that can be attributed to the shadow of Silksong, more is due to the game’s nature: Cronos is a feast for those who seek it. It understands the genre's language intimately, and though it may never truly redefine the lexicon and falls short in its own ambition, it executes its vision with damning competence, fairly. A year ago, after the launch Silent Hill 2, I posited that it represented a maturation for Bloober Team. Yet, I was still anticipating an original title that transcends their previous work, which has often been considered budget titles. That title has arrived sooner than expected. Cronos is, undoutably, the studio's most accomplished original work to date, a scrumptious, if occasionally frustrating, experience that nevertheless does not quite surpass their reimagining of SH 2, whose foundations were, of course, laid by others. Cronos opens as a slow-burn atmospheric mystery horror. You inhabit the role of 'The Traveler', a protagonist whose initial monotony the developers trust will evolve into a relatable humanity akin to Ripley from Alien. Credit is due for the attempt, but in execution, this character arc fails to coalesce which is hard to convey without spoilers. The game’s cassette futurism belies its sci-fi, grounding it in a chillingly tangible reality. This is a dead, cold world, but its environments are eloquent storytellers, often whispering narratives of those who lived and struggled in 1980s Krakow under martial law through grafittis and set pieces. In Cronos’ alternate history, this martial law was kept to contain 'The Change,' a virulent infectious disease. Wearing a Soviet-era-esque diving suit, The Traveler is an agent of 'The Collective,' sent back in time to extract targets from their final moments, seeking answers amidst the danger of Orphans who has a habit of unionizing. Jokes aside, this is indeed a story about collectivism. The historical groundwork is sound, and the artistic interpretation is compellingly solid, evoking the spirit of a title like Cryostasis. The first three hours are a masterclass in atmospheric storytelling, some of the most captivating gaming I’ve experienced recently, brimming with unknown horrors and a compulsion to devour every text and audio log. These vignettes (acting as subplots) ultimately position Cronos as a game whose brilliant parts are greater than its whole. As we traverse the brutalist landscape of Nowa Huta, witnessing the remnants of a socialist regime and its inhabitants' fraught relationship with control and detention. The core narrative tension remains still: collectivism vs. individualism, asking what one sacrifices for the self at the expense of the whole, is regrettably reduced to a narrative of abusive obsession between the Warden, ‘Vocated’ to extract his prey Weronika, summarized in his bleak philosophy: "Any fate is better than no fate." . This personal tension, while certainly was something I would not expect to see in a survival horror, so it is something fresh, feels a lesser vehicle for the themes the world so vividly constructs. The narrative itself is shrouded in a fog of weasel words and endless pronouns, a deliberate but frustrating obfuscation that provides clues yet makes cohesive understanding a relentless challenge. The ending feels satisfactory for the plot's immediate threads but is a disservice to the grander premise. Cronos, was not offering anything I haven't seen before, bits of everything. The influence loop is evident. My contention is not with its inspirations, but with its choice of focus; the survival horror genre feels an ill-fit for the nuanced handling of a personal abusive relationship, a theme that would have been better served through the maintained political metaphor. But that's me. I was also largely unable to care for the cast. Mechanically, it's a earnest hybrid. It employs environmental puzzles, exploitable hazards, enemies than you can kite and the dreaded forced arena fights, demanding preparation and resourcefulness. The lack of difficulty settings is a confident choice, and for the most part, I would call it's just about right. Exploration is rewarding, and combat encounters are satisfying, though the game can stumble in one or two areas where tactical resources become perilously scarce (comedically, moreso than TLOU's grounded or TEW's Akumu), forcing a reliance on random drops from enemies and crates. A found Pyre (stuns enemies and burns corpses) in these moments feels like divine intervention. This rare design flaw stands out precisely as it feels unplaytested for less-optimal player outcomes. This extends to the inventory, an exercise in permanent sacrifice. You can't simply drop and retrieve items; you must delete them irrevocably. While this creates a compelling conflict of interest in theory which I have lots of respect for, in practice, it often feels unnecessarily punitive. With precious space already devoted to ammunition, weapons, and key items, the forced deletion of consumables like healing items or tools feels cruelly arbitrary. A mitigating grace is the ability to refund weapon upgrades for energy. Checkpoints can too be scarce, and progress loss from a forgotten save or an abrupt death is a real threat, though rarely exceeding ten minutes. The game does show mercy, placing checkpoints before protracted paths or arduous fights. Combat lacks immediacy, built around charged shots that deliver satisfyingly weighty punches. However, this clashes with the Dead Space-inspired enemy sponginess, and the visual feedback, lacking the visceral peeling or dismemberment of its inspirations. The realization sat in when the final boss fight against a human-like adversary, where every shot registers with visible consequence. But the boss itself was thematically too distant from the rest of the pack while still mechanically sound. You oft-need to study the movement and line up the enemies for efficiency. The world Bloober has built is undeniable. Each level is a dense, uniquely crafted monument to survival horror tropes: flats, hospital and a church, all rendered with compelling detail and functionality. The opening acts are pleasingly linear, with minimal backtracking, while the later hospital and church sections evolve into classic key-item hunts. The puzzles never reach the iconic heights, but the progression through each environment is utterly satisfying, aided by a network of well-though shortcuts. You have Oddities which you can manipulate in order to traverse the areas. They are visually impressive but not as engaging. The Gravity Jump (another means of traversal) also suffers from this; it plays like the zero-g sections from og Dead Space. You are later given bolts that lets you take down explosive enemies and cannisters risk-free without wasting ammo. Lastly, you can manipulate oddities in arenas to reconstruct explosive/flammable canisters (all reusable), which helps a great deal. Another mechanic involves using 'essences' extracted from targets. These grant gameplay bonuses (increased damage to burning enemies, etc.) but also psychologically bleed over into The Traveler’s reality, the essence occasionally flickering across the screen in a manner reminiscent of AW2’s jumpscares. It is a neat, immersive trick, but one that feels tragically underutilized as a deeper vehicle for storytelling. I don't think Cronos was able to completely reverse post-RE4 tendencies, but I deeply believe that, as the first of its kind in Bloober's catalogue, it is surprisingly adept and orthodox at harnessing the strengths of the earlier classics, the very ones I love, over the recent action horrors. More power to Bloober. Plus you can pet the cats! ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Please take a moment to check out my curator for more in-depth reviews

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.

I was not going to Write review for a game i refunded, it doesn't sit right on my soul. But Positive reviews on Steam hurts me. The game runs like hot pile of garbage, RTX 5080 with 1080p, there is some areas the game gives around 40 FPS. Is this even a joke? it's not absolutely impossible to get better performance out of optimized / custom settings but generally this game is not performant at all. If you go back to Alan Wake 2, you will see much better visual fidelity and at least 50% better performance on your PC. My main issue with this game was, the preset quality is very bad and doesn't scale well. I should not be worried about tweaking much setting for 1080p resolution with RTX 5080 / 13700k system. If you say this game is performing fine, you are giving them idea, and you are the part of the problem.

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.

I may be the minority here with this take, but I genuinely didn't enjoy the game as much as I hoped. It's such an unoriginal, uninspiring gameplay design. This game takes the ideas of Dead Space & RE4 and makes them horrendous. It's the same copypaste survival-action formula from every modern RE title ever. The only difference being how terribly implemented it is. Significantly worse inventory system. Awful balancing. Limited "upgrade" system. Boring and overused enemies. Clunky movement & combat. An overused trope of body morphing.. done terribly. The inventory system racks my brain. I cannot fathom why you'd want such a frustrating system in your game. Imagine needing to collect a progression item and having no room for it. Why not have a quest-item inventory like every other game in this genre does? I'm sure people are just jumping for joy having to use up their spare meds / ammo in order to free up ONE slot to move on with the game. I feel bad for those that have to back track through everything just to clear 1-2 slots for quest-progression items. Speaking of, why is it that the main weapon of the game is a singular pistol that can change forms, but takes up a slot for each form? You're just making the already-terrible inventory system worse by default with this decision. I can't tell if this is a chronic skill-issue on my part, or the RNG is absolutely horrendous. Anytime I break open a yellow-tape box (yes, those stupid things are littered in this game too), I get.. absolutely nothing! That's right, nothing! Break open 3-4 crates and receive completely nothing in return. No ammo, no meds, nothing. When I DO on the off-chance actually get SOMETHING from the crates, it's just energy.. and the smallest amount possible at that (energy is this game's "currency" for the shop). Due to the poor distribution of supplies, I find myself being LUCKY to have 10 bullets to use at any given time. If you're not using the charge shot ability on the pistol at all times, you're literally wasting ammo. Upgrading your suit & weapons is as bare bones as it can get. Nothing gives you a special skill, ability, or perk. It is quite simply "number go up" and that's it. Wanna upgrade the duration of burning enemies? Spend a core to make it burn from 1 second, to 1.33 seconds! Wow!! The enemies are so overused & limited it hurts. I dunno why they do the Dead Space method of "Black skin = strong." Somehow a darker version of the same enemy just has more health. Not only that, but why the worst kinda of enemies? Why slugging pus-balls? Why Spitters? Why wall-attached enemies that just trigger QTE events constantly? These aren't fun, they're annoying. Couple this with the jank movement and you've got boring, clunky combat. I can't lie, I had more fun running up to them & slugging a mean right hook and stomping them than actually trying to shoot. I wish melee was actually usable because the animations are clean. I assumed it was supposed to be a replacement for the utter drought of ammunition, but a loading tip says "Don't rely on your fists, only a last resort." TL;DR melee does absolutely no damage, and no.. you can't upgrade your melee strength / force whatsoever. Which begs the question; why even add the ability to melee, knowing it does nothing and you can't upgrade it? Especially considering the vast majority of enemies spit acid puddles everywhere forbidding you from getting within 20 feet of them. All in all, I expected better. It takes existing ideas from other popular titles and.. that's it. It doesn't expand upon any of them, nor does it explore anything deeper than face value. It genuinely just doesn't feel original, new, or fun. Summarized: As someone who lives for the horror genre, this doesn't do it justice for me. I wasn't scared a single time, I never felt engrossed in the atmosphere, and to top it all off--I just couldn't care. The game gives you no reason to give an inkling of thought or consideration towards anyone or anything--leading you to have no interest in seeing the results. Final verdict? It's... mediocre. Average. Mid. Generic. "Okay." It's a game, that's really all I can say. Not great, not terrible. Get it on sale. PS: Such is our calling to collect cats.

better than anything ive ever played please make more games that are good like this and i will pay an arm and a leg or two legs so i can still play the game

The game is poorly optimized and doesn't fully utilize the power of my RTX 4090. Only 390W OF 600W 41fps 4K MaxOut. 2025 game doesn't support Arabic language. That's just plain rude.

Performance is just awful THAT IS MY BIGGEST COMPLAINT i cannot play a game with bad performance,anyone that says this game is good is mind blowing, this will never be dead space an this game is nothing like DEAD SPACE........ it was boring i get it was the beginning but it was boring in my opinion,people nowadays just will play anything an say its good ,its really sad that gamers now just love slop they dont care anymore. idc if people say oh well it gets better no,FIRST impressions MEAN EVERYTHING sorry but no im saying no to this game as of now,I WILL WAIT an see if it improves.just wait do not buy it as of now wait n see if they fix performance.

It's not better than Dead Space but it is a good survival horror game. The first 2 hours may give you the wrong impression on the game but the story and gameplay does open up a lot more after the slow starting. I personally still think their best work is Silent Hill 2 Remake but this is very close in quality. Good effort on Bloober Team's part it ain't a masterpiece but it's still damn great! Just a little warning though this games difficulty is on the harder side for this genre at least I think so anyway.

Played for about an hour, refunded. I was hyped for this game for months, but it just did not click with me in the end. Storytelling did not grab me at all and the game was not really atmospheric either. The main character comes across as off putting, and the difficulty felt poorly balanced with no way to adjust it. No dodge, no block, just shoot and run around with a character that feels way too slow compared to the enemies. The starter weapon is way too weak even for a starter weapon, enemies eat several shots, and after only 3 hits you are already down. Not exactly fun, at least for me. Graphics look nice at first, but the levels quickly turn bland and forgettable. Enemy design is boring, they look like generic placeholders, and the mechanics are just as lazy. Find 2 fuses, grab one, enemies spawn. Very creative. Overall a disappointment. Instead of feeling scared or thrilled I just ended up bored and annoyed. Maybe worth picking up for 20 in the next summer sale, but definitely not for 60 or 70.

2 hours for the same boss pitty this game does not have an "easy" settings. waste of money and time