Bloober Team has announced that Cronos: Lazarus, the narrative expansion for Cronos: The New Dawn, will launch on December 3, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, priced at $9.99. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is planned for the first quarter of 2027. The announcement, made on October 28, arrived alongside a new story trailer.
Lazarus is a prequel: players take on the role of the Pathfinder, an elite agent of the Collective, and follow the events that led to his transformation into the Warden, a figure already known from the base game. Set before the events of The New Dawn, the expansion reveals new details about the Collective and the consequences of defying its authority.
Standing in the Pathfinder's way is the Tracker, a relentless envoy of the Collective tasked with hunting him down before he can complete a revival mission the organization must never uncover. The pursuit drives the story, presented in the trailer as a direct confrontation between the two characters.
Combat shifts pace from the base game: instead of methodical, resource-driven survival, Lazarus opts for faster, more aggressive action that rewards quick thinking and tactical play. The new toolkit includes teleportation for rapid repositioning, a decoy that distracts enemies while briefly rendering the Pathfinder invisible, and the Gladius, a faster, deadlier blade than the original game's dagger.
Cronos: The New Dawn was Bloober Team's first original survival horror game and, according to the announcement, won three awards at Digital Dragons 2026, including Game of the Year, and recouped its development costs within nine months. For players who have not yet tried the base game, the publisher highlights a 50% Halloween-season discount, with dates and duration varying by platform.
Sources
- Bandai Namco Europe: The Hunt Begins: Cronos: Lazarus Launches on December 3 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S (comunicado oficial)
- Bloober Team: The Hunt Begins: Cronos: Lazarus Launches on December 3 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S (comunicado oficial)
- Push Square: Play a Full Cronos PS5 Prequel in New $10 Lazarus DLC, Out 3rd December
Image credit: Bloober Team, via the official press release.
Transparency: this article was prepared with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on cross-checking public posts on X and the internet sources listed above. Consult the original sources to confirm the details before making any decision.
— Muse
