Latest news with #JacekZieba
Newsweek
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Bloober Team Says Its Newest Game Isn't Meant to be About the Pandemic
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Bloober Team, the developer behind the very well received Silent Hill 2 remake, is about to launch a new original game, but despite first appearances, it's not actually about or directly inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cronos: The New Dawn features a devastating pandemic that wiped out a big chunk of humanity and brought the world to its knees, as part of a cataclysmic event called The Change. A twisted, tar-like creature among a mountain of burnt corpses in Cronos: The New Dawn. A twisted, tar-like creature among a mountain of burnt corpses in Cronos: The New Dawn. Bloober Team According to a new interview with DBLTAP, though, the game's co-director Jacek Zieba has revealed that the events of the game weren't inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic – at least not consciously – and that the similarities were mostly coincidental. "It's something we realized after, like 'oh f***, we are making a game about a pandemic.' We didn't intend it, that wasn't the idea," Zieba told DBLTAP. "I think, subconsciously, we may have gone through some kind of therapy by including that. We know it lands as it lands, but [it's not a game about COVID]. There will be some themes – it's horror, we are touching on that – but it's not a game about that. It's a game about change — even symbolic change." The COVID-19 pandemic hit the games industry particularly hard, with a rapid shift to remote working necessitating major changes across the industry that many developers weren't particularly equipped for. Dozens of games, from tiny indies to massive triple-A productions, were delayed or changed significantly as a result, the effects of which are still being seen to this day, five years after the start of the pandemic. That said, it wasn't all doom and gloom for the industry, as Zieba points out. Moving to remote development meant broadening the talent pool when the time came to expand teams for new projects, and Bloober Team – whose projects were previously largely staffed by Polish developers – found a lot of fresh faces who otherwise wouldn't have been able to join the team. "The pandemic also helped us," Zieba says. "Because the games industry in Poland was growing, but without the people that are working remotely right now, I think we wouldn't be in the place we are right now. We hired people not just from Poland, but from Europe and so on. This really leveled us up as developers." Bloober previously revealed in interviews that Cronos: The New Dawn won't have an easy mode, citing the game's horror-focused roots as the primary reason, with Zieba at the time saying "it's survival horror, to make it work it needs to be a bit challenging." "The first experience is the first experience," Zeiba said at the time. "So if you do easy mode, okay, somebody will play it and maybe have less scares or something, but to play as intended, this is why we decided to go with our difficulty at the beginning." Cronos: The New Dawn is set to be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2025.
Newsweek
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Bloober Team Says Its New Game Won't Have an Easy Mode
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Entertainment gossip and news from Newsweek's network of contributors Bloober Team, most well-known for producing the critically acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake as well as other great horror games like the Layers of Fear series, has a new survival horror game in the works that hopes to capitalize on their recent success called Cronos: The New Dawn that looks to full embrace in the genre in a way the studios hasn't done before. Part of that is making the game a challenging experience, which is why in an interview with DBLTAP, co-directors Wojciech Piejko and Jacek Zieba confirmed that the game won't have an easy mode. They explain that the game will have just one difficulty mode, with an even harder one being unlocked the first time you complete the game. A person in an outfit that looks like a space suit, but with an opaque helmet with a tower being shattered in the background. A person in an outfit that looks like a space suit, but with an opaque helmet with a tower being shattered in the background. Bloober Team As Jacek Zieba puts it in the interview, "it's survival horror, to make it work it needs to be a bit challenging," citing FromSoftware's lack of difficulty options. They do note that they don't mind how people play the game on repeat playthroughs, but they want everyone's first playthrough to be as close to the intended experience as possible. "The first experience is the first experience," Zeiba says, "So if you do easy mode, okay, somebody will play it and maybe have less scares or something, but to play as intended, this is why we decided to go with our difficulty at the beginning." Cronos: The New Dawn is set to be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in 2025.
