Bloober Team has been delivering some fantastic releases over the past year, first with Silent Hill 2 and then with Cronos: The New Dawn, a grim, bleak vision of the future built around a concept the studio developed. Now, it is set to release Cronos: Lazarus, the first full story DLC for the base game.
I got to go hands-on with it during gamescom 2026, and it is very interesting. While it may be DLC, Bloober Team is delivering something very different from the base experience and offering a whole new way to explore its dark world. After the time I spent with it, I could not be more excited to see how it comes together in the full release.
For anyone who does not remember everything that happened in the base game, Cronos: The New Dawn puts you in the boots of the Traveler, picking through the ruins of a shattered Poland and jumping back to the 1980s to save key people from the past. Its monsters, the Orphans, are twisted shells of former humans. Fail to burn their bodies, and they fuse with the dead into something far worse. Ammo is tight, every shot counts, and the whole experience is built around dread. It is dark, horrific and oppressive in the best possible way.
Cronos: Lazarus flips that script and lets you control someone who knows what is going on and is a much more powerful force in the game’s world. You now play as the Warden, the once-loyal Pathfinder on his way to becoming the figure players meet in the main game. Cut off in the Terminal and acting against the orders of the powers he serves, he is chasing a lost Essence he refuses to let go. I will not reveal too much here because I do not want to spoil the main game.
That means during Cronos: Lazarus you will be digging into the memories of a fallen Traveler, putting him at odds with the very people he answers to and setting him on the path to becoming the force of nature we encounter throughout the base game. The concept had me from the moment I heard about the DLC, and actually playing it turned it into a must-play experience. Bloober Team feels like it has nailed what makes the Warden so impressive and dangerous.
The Traveler survives by being careful, but the Warden is built to push forward, and the studio has billed Cronos: Lazarus as a more aggressive take on its own formula. His two new tricks make that clear. Decoy throws out a holographic double that foes swarm on sight, buying you room to slip past or open fire. Against the bigger Orphans, it feels close to essential, though a long cooldown keeps it balanced. Teleport is the flashier tool, letting you blink across broken ground or out of a monster’s grip in a heartbeat.
I was excited to put this new power to the test, and the gamescom demo did not disappoint. Waves of Orphans rushed me through cramped, worn-down halls, and I answered with shotgun blasts and rapid handgun fire. Since it had been a while since I played the main game, I forgot to torch the dead, and I paid for it. Corpses knit together into hulking, merged horrors that soaked up my rounds.
I closed out the demo for Cronos: Lazarus, dealing with a brute of an Orphan that stood twice the Warden’s height and, of all things, spat acid. I dumped plenty of ammo into it before dying in the process. Even with the Warden’s added power, Cronos is no less forgiving.
You still need to approach the game carefully or risk being overwhelmed. Despite how powerful the Warden is, Cronos remains a challenging game, and that is still true here. The character is a force of nature in the wasteland, but even he can be taken down when enough enemies stand in his way, and that is part of the fun. It is a whole new way to experience the hellish world Bloober Team created, and it is one that is hard to put down.
This was a demo tuned for gamescom, so not everything is settled yet and how Cronos: Lazarus will feel when released will most certainly be slightly different. Ammo felt generous in both the closed-door session and the public show-floor build, though that may be demo tuning rather than a broader design choice. Teleport also saw little use in combat here, serving mostly as a way to cross gaps, so its real value in a fight remains an open question. Make no mistake, though, this is very much more Cronos. Early areas revisit locations from the main game, and nobody should expect a new biome or a fresh spin on the formula. Honestly, I am good with that.
The base game’s thick, heavy mood is still one of its best features, and Cronos: Lazarus keeps it intact. With headphones on, the rush of sandstorms and the rattle of debris had me stopping mid-step, sure something was about to lunge at me. The sound work that made Silent Hill 2 so tense is still here, and it still works. Even with the new power the Warden brings to the game, it never felt like easy mode. That was one thing I worried about when I first heard we would be playing as the character.
If there is a complaint, it is that the demo was short and left plenty untested, and I only got a glimpse of what Cronos: Lazarus will offer. But as a taste of what is next, it did its job. Playing as the Warden feels like the power trip the base game never let you have, and the story hook is strong enough to carry the action.
Cronos: Lazarus launches this fall for PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, and it is available to wishlist on Steam now. A firm release date is still to come, and I can not wait to learn more. For anyone who wanted one more trip into this ruined world, it is shaping up to be worth the wait.
