Cronos: The New Dawn is the latest survival horror game from Bloober Team developers of the SILENT HILL 2 remake. It's now Steam Deck Verified too!
Not just that, but the developer even added Native Linux support to it which was a surprise to see, although Valve's verification for Steam Deck has set it to use the latest Proton 10 Beta.
More about it:
Cronos: The New Dawn is a brutal third-person survival horror where you fight for the future by salvaging the past. Burn monsters before they merge. Extract souls from the living. Adapt or die.
Set in a grim world where Eastern European brutalism meets retro-futurist technology, Cronos: The New Dawn lets you experience a gripping story that straddles the line between past and future.
In the past, you will witness a world in the throes of The Change, a cataclysmic event that forever altered humanity. Meanwhile, in the ravaged wastelands of the future, every moment is a fight for survival against dangerous abominations that will test both your reflexes and your tactical thinking.
You are a Traveler working for the enigmatic Collective, tasked with scouring the wastelands of the future in search of time rifts that will transport you to 1980s-era Poland.
Check out the launch trailer below:
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Direct Link
Direct Link
It's currently in Advanced Access but releases for everyone later today.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky [External Link].
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I'm very surprised!
By having such a graphical intense game native on Linux nowadays in the first place,
by it being an Unreal Engine game, which we have not seen many native games on,
and by it being from Bloober Team, who had their last native game, Layers of Fear, back in 2016!
By having such a graphical intense game native on Linux nowadays in the first place,
by it being an Unreal Engine game, which we have not seen many native games on,
and by it being from Bloober Team, who had their last native game, Layers of Fear, back in 2016!
3 Likes
The native Linux version sadly does not support Ray Tracing, dlss, fsr or xess like the Windows version does.
1 Likes
The native Linux version sadly does not support Ray Tracing, dlss, fsr or xess like the Windows version does.
I wouldn't care for ray tracing, but as the negative reviews mostly are due to performance, some scaling might help here...
2 Likes
The native Linux version sadly does not support Ray Tracing, dlss, fsr or xess like the Windows version does.
From what I remember XESS never got a Linux release. Just a Windows DLL. The other things are baffling though. Trying to make a proper Linux version is appreciated. But it should at least be comparable to the Windows version.
Also, I wish Valve forced Proton on games with bad/unsupported Linux versions. It can give a bad impression when some games perform horribly just because it runs the worse version.
1 Likes
So you're going through hell, trying to arrange to end up in Poland in the 1980s. I'm not sure I see this as a big payoff. 
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 5 Sep 2025 at 4:48 pm UTC
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 5 Sep 2025 at 4:48 pm UTC
1 Likes
I wouldn't care for ray tracing, but as the negative reviews mostly are due to performance, some scaling might help
There is TSR and adaptive scaling in the native version, but yea kinda weird that they did not add FSR or DLSS.
I believe the Linux version uses software ray tracing on the higher graphic settings, but I have to compare to the Windows version more to be sure.
Last edited by awesam on 5 Sep 2025 at 7:06 pm UTC
1 Likes
ScottCarammell 3 days ago
Native game from BLOOBER TEAM? That's really unexpected! They haven't made native games since like Layers of Fear. Hopefully they keep at it, I love nati-
Last edited by ScottCarammell on 6 Sep 2025 at 1:03 am UTC
The native Linux version sadly does not support...fsr or xess like the Windows version does.
I wouldn't care for ray tracing, but as the negative reviews mostly are due to performance, some scaling might help here...Aaaaand it's worthless. Don't do Unreal Engine, kids. Still probably buying it just to show support (definitely not at full price though lmfao) but god there's always an asterisk with a game going native with Unreal isn't there? Always Unreal specifically too, other engines are usually fine. Why can't it just be a good engine for 2 seconds?
Last edited by ScottCarammell on 6 Sep 2025 at 1:03 am UTC
2 Likes
Besides the original Layers of Fear, the original Observer (before the Redux version) also had native support.
I played the original Silent Hill 2 probably 20+ years ago, on the PS2, and loved it. I later played 3, which was also good but not quite as good, then 4 which was definitely a few steps down. Eventually I played the first one; it was for the original PlayStation, so definitely a bit dated, but still better than the 4th game. I think everything that came after 4 wasn't good; I tried one of them (Homecoming?), and wasn't impressed. A few years back there was buzz about a Silent Hills "playable teaser", but I never tried that, and I guess it got scrapped (falling out with Hideo Kojima, after which he made Death Stranding?).
They tried to do a HD remaster of Silent Hill 2 for the PS3, but it had bad reviews, as apparently it was based on a buggy beta release - rumor was that they lost the source code of the final release, which had some important fixes.
Fast forward to the present - I was home sick from work last week, and played a bit of Bloober's remake on the PS5 (got a good deal on it; Steam key is still expensive even on sale!). I have to say, they did a great job, and it is mostly how I remember the original (I'm sure I'd appreciate it a lot less now, having played the great remake).
The new Silent Hill f looks like a different take on it; I'll wait for reviews. However, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to remakes of Silent Hill 1 and 3, done by Bloober. Capcom did great with their Resident Evil remakes, which I'm guessing was the inspiration.
Edit: looks like they *are* doing a remake of the first game too! "We are thrilled to announce that a SILENT HILL remake project is in the works at Bloober Team, developed in close cooperation with our friends from Konami!"
https://www.metacritic.com/game/silent-hill/ [External Link]
Last edited by Phlebiac on 6 Sep 2025 at 5:38 am UTC
I played the original Silent Hill 2 probably 20+ years ago, on the PS2, and loved it. I later played 3, which was also good but not quite as good, then 4 which was definitely a few steps down. Eventually I played the first one; it was for the original PlayStation, so definitely a bit dated, but still better than the 4th game. I think everything that came after 4 wasn't good; I tried one of them (Homecoming?), and wasn't impressed. A few years back there was buzz about a Silent Hills "playable teaser", but I never tried that, and I guess it got scrapped (falling out with Hideo Kojima, after which he made Death Stranding?).
They tried to do a HD remaster of Silent Hill 2 for the PS3, but it had bad reviews, as apparently it was based on a buggy beta release - rumor was that they lost the source code of the final release, which had some important fixes.
Fast forward to the present - I was home sick from work last week, and played a bit of Bloober's remake on the PS5 (got a good deal on it; Steam key is still expensive even on sale!). I have to say, they did a great job, and it is mostly how I remember the original (I'm sure I'd appreciate it a lot less now, having played the great remake).
The new Silent Hill f looks like a different take on it; I'll wait for reviews. However, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to remakes of Silent Hill 1 and 3, done by Bloober. Capcom did great with their Resident Evil remakes, which I'm guessing was the inspiration.
Edit: looks like they *are* doing a remake of the first game too! "We are thrilled to announce that a SILENT HILL remake project is in the works at Bloober Team, developed in close cooperation with our friends from Konami!"
https://www.metacritic.com/game/silent-hill/ [External Link]
Last edited by Phlebiac on 6 Sep 2025 at 5:38 am UTC
1 Likes
Does the game support Wayland natively through the native Linux build?
0 Likes
R Daneel Olivaw a day ago
I've always wondered what it would be like to play as a character with no eyes, ears, nose, mouth ... just a vagina helmet and nothing else. Now ... it's finally happened.
0 Likes
Can anybody comment on the performance of the native Linux version?
Not great but it is playable, performance is kinda all over the place depending on the location.
On my setup with:
RX 7900 GRE at 1440p resolution
Graphics maxed, Dynamic Resolution with target set to 60fps and supersamling OFF
FPS Hovers around 35-55fps depending on the location
One weird thing is that even though it is possible to set a lower resolution scale, it does not seem to scale performance much as expected (so not sure if something is broken with the setting). To gain better performance it is really all about adjusting quality settings.
So for me it was a better option to switch to Proton, and play the game using XeSS upscaling.
I bet one could play around with the UE5 config files on the native version to tweak things
1 Likes
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