I was ready to write off the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Cronos: The New Dawn as just another good enough port for the underpowered platform, that is, until I undocked my Switch 2 and played the game in handheld mode.
Of course, expectations must still be tempered, as Cronos: The New Dawn is a AAA effort using Unreal Engine 5, made first and foremost for PC and console players. In other words, Cronos: The New Dawn was never explicitly made to cater to the restraints of mobile hardware architecture, such as what powers the Nintendo Switch 2.
Saying that, however, Cronos: The New Dawn on the Nintendo Switch 2 is a surprisingly competent port, one that still manages to keep the core of the survival horror experience intact when compared to its PC and console releases. For readers just tuning in, Cronos: The New Dawn places players into the shoes of a Traveller, an enigmatic operative sent deep into the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Poland in search of answers after a cataclysmic event.
Although interesting, the narrative in Cronos: The New Dawn is really an excuse for Bloober Team to create the perfect backdrop for what they do best: blending cerebral horror with more conventional atmospheric and gross-out art direction that creates a solid sense of place and tension. Thankfully, even on Nintendo Switch 2, Cronos: The New Dawn manages to capture most of its grotesque detail in delivering a survival horror experience that seems to blend the best elements of its contemporaries into a fun, if not perhaps a bit too familiar, package.
The most significant changes in the Nintendo Switch 2 release of Cronos: The New Dawn are the cutbacks to volumetric lighting, such as lumen and the overall quality of ambient occlusion within the environment, along with aliasing, particularly during explosions and other finite details, such as some textures, along with less refined geometry. Frame rate, too, is cut back to a locked 30fps, which at the very least seems to run fairly consistently in both docked and handheld modes.
“Despite all the cutbacks, Cronos: The New Dawn looks an order of magnitude better than other ports of contemporary releases, such as The Witcher 3 on the original Nintendo Switch.”
Despite all the cutbacks, Cronos: The New Dawn looks an order of magnitude better than other ports of contemporary releases, such as The Witcher 3 on the original Nintendo Switch, made even more impressive when playing in handheld mode. Thanks to the Nintendo Switch 2’s 1080p VRR-capable display, I found Cronos: The New Dawn to be best enjoyed undocked, where some of the reduction in quality is less noticeable due to the smaller and lower resolution 1080p panel. The game appears to feel smoother, too, perhaps due to VRR being exclusive to handheld play, making the 30fps frame rate easier to contend with.
Cronos: The New Dawn is a deliberately slow-paced survival horror experience when it comes to its overall feel, with the Traveler character feeling like a person strapped inside a slow and bulky astronaut suit, making each and every hit feel measured and intentional, which works well enough to create tension, but suffers somewhat on Nintendo Switch 2, due to 30 fps frame cap. Basically, if you have the means to experience Cronos: The New Dawn on any other platform, it is advised to skip the Nintendo Switch 2 release of the game.
“Cronos: The New Dawn is a solid port that does the best it can, given the hardware restraints of Nintendo’s latest hybrid console.”
Outside of the novelty of handheld play and some solid feeling haptics for both the Switch 2 Pro controller and the Joy-Con 2s, I do wish Cronos: The New Dawn on Nintendo Switch 2 would utilize some more of the unique hardware capabilities left on the table, such as Wii-style motion controls ala Resident Evil 4, mouse input or even just general gyro controls for when using the Pro controller.
Ultimately, for those stuck with Nintendo Switch 2 as their only platform, or for those who are not sensitive to frame rates and enjoy playing games portably, Cronos: The New Dawn is a solid port that does the best it can, given the hardware restraints of Nintendo’s latest hybrid console, making it worthwhile to check out for survival horror fans.
