Bloober Team had a tough time with Silent Hill 2 because of the online 'hate.' But now that they've proven themselves, they want to'show us what we can do' on their own with Cronos: The New Dawn.

Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 came as a pleasant surprise. The studio has been responsible for several well-received horror titles since its pivot into the genre in 2016 with Layers of Fear. However, none of these games had the sophistication of Team Silent’s GOAT. Bloober Team's creepy walking sims were a far cry from the 2001 twisted horror survival game. Expectations were low.

At the time, I thought Konami's choice of studio was baffling. I liked Observer's gloomy cyberpunk adventure, but found the Layers of Fear games to be derivative and, in terms of scares, cheap. Silent Hill 2 has proven that it is up to the task. Silent Hill 2 is the studio's biggest success. We called it "fun, but flawed" in our Silent Hill 2 Review, but it has since become the studio's most successful game. It currently enjoys a "Overwhelmingly positive" rating on Steam.

"They recreated an iconic game," Bloober Team designer and director Wojciech Pijko told GameSpot. "They made the unthinkable possible, but it was a bumpy ride because of the hate on the Internet. They were under a lot of pressure, but they delivered. For the company, this is an amazing moment."

Director and producer Jacek zieba said, "It was hard for those two years before [Silent Hill 2]'s release." But the team didn’t let it get to their skin. "They made it. We made it. Now, there's a lot of good energy in [the studio]. "We want to show how we can develop our ideas on our own.

Cronos: The New Dawn is the first original survival horror title from the studio. The project was started after the launch in 2021 of The Medium, so it has been in development with Silent Hill 2 with a different group.

Bloober Team announced the game last week. "Players take on the role as Traveler, a mysterious agent of the Collective with a task to rescue selected people who did not survive the apocalypse of the past." To complete the Collective's Mission, players will have to survive the deadly wasteland that has been created by the cataclysmic Change. This is a place filled with monstrous creatures that will test players' combat skills.

It's set in 1980s Poland as well as a pandemic-ravaged, future. As a fan Bloober Team’s previous sci-fi adventure--also set in Poland--my curiosity is piqued.

Silent Hill 2 was designed by a completely different team. However, it has had a significant impact. Zieba explained that it was helpful in terms of technology to switch from the first-person camera to the third-person one, with ranged combat. The Silent Hill team had provided the foundation [for Cronos] for us to start pre-production. It's a survival horror game. The similarities end there.

The studio calls this stage "Bloober 3.0", the second phase of its development as a horror developer. Zieba stated, "We want to become a horror company." "We are trying to find our niche and we believe we have found it, so let's just evolve with it."

He added that the specifics of its evolution plan "is more complicated," but it also happens "organically in a sense, like [2016's] Layers of Fear. People in the studio were like "OK, we've made some shitty, old games, but we can evolve."

Piejko, in a separate IGN interview, also left the door open to more Silent Hill titles from the studio. "There are many opportunities to be taken," he said. "Like Silent Hill 2 you can remake legend. "I do believe in everything.

Silent Hill 2's success is not surprising. Konami is ultimately responsible for the series' fate.