Cronos: The New Dawn is a pretty difficult game, and it’s made even harder by the fact that there’s a finite amount of upgrade materials available to you in a single run. As such, you’ll want to make informed decisions throughout your journey to ensure your health, inventory, and weapons are all able to withstand what the game throws at you.
While you’ll start to obtain more of both materials in the back half of the game, the opening hours can often feel restrictive, forcing you to make very tough decisions about what upgrades will improve your chances of success. Below, we’ll list out the best early upgrades we think you should go with to feel confident in taking on the challenges ahead.
What to know about upgrade materials in Cronos: The New Dawn
There are two types of upgrade materials: Energy and Cores.
Energy is used to upgrade your weapons. It’s plentiful throughout the game, usually sitting on shelves or other places where you might find items, though it will also sometimes drop from defeated enemies.
Cores, meanwhile, are used to level up your suit (health and inventory space), as well as your Torch Fuel and Pyre items. These are rare and typically found by seeking out optional paths–such as through chainlocked doors–or by petting cats that are hiding in the world.
Best upgrades to buy first in Cronos: The New Dawn
Here are the best upgrades to focus on first in Cronos: The New Dawn.
Temporal Shell – Inventory Slots and Suit Integrity
Cronos: The New Dawn is very stingy with inventory space, so managing it properly can be a very stressful experience. Is it worth dropping some much-needed ammo to carry a vintage item you found that can be sold back in a safe room for a big chunk of Energy? Should you carry more healing items, or bring along the bolt cutters you found a bit ago that can help you open chainlocked doors?
It’s a lot to think about, but it can be made much easier by investing in Inventory Slot upgrades early so that you can carry some extra items. However, you’ll also need to worry about your health, especially in the opening hours when you’re coming to grips with how the game plays and may be making more mistakes. As such, it’s a good idea to use some Cores to upgrade your Suit Integrity early on, too.
So, how do you decide which to upgrade? Your best bet in the first half of the game is to switch between the two each time you have enough Cores for an upgrade. Once you fill in the fourth Suit Integrity slot and have your health to 200, you should probably go all-in on Inventory Slots until it’s maxed out. The back half of the game is overflowing with stuff to pick up, as well as additional weapons that you’ll want to bring with you, so you’ll be thankful to have more space for them all.
Sword MK-1615 (Handgun) – Stability and Charge Speed
You may be inclined to start with Firepower upgrades for the Sword MK-1615, but since most normal enemies will take between 1-3 headshots from this handgun either way, upgrading its damage is less important than with the shotgun (as we’ll discuss below). Besides, more damage is irrelevant if your bullets don’t hit their target, meaning your best bet is usually going to be to toss at least a few upgrades into Stability. This will reduce the wobbly aiming and make it easier to re-center after taking shots.
Speaking of taking shots with the handgun, you’ll want to make sure you’re charging each shot you take to do maximum damage. So, investing into Charge Speed can make a huge difference when enemies are closing in on you rapidly, allowing you to get your shots out quicker and reposition when needed.
Hammer PROV-2030 (Shotgun) – Firepower and Charge Speed
The shotgun is your true heavy hitter throughout much of the game. Unlike the handgun, which benefits less from Firepower, you’ll want to pump up the shotgun’s Firepower stat as much as possible. This makes it an immensely deadly weapon against bosses, as well as well as a useful tool for herding enemies into a group and downing them all with a single blast.
Because you’ll be using this against difficult bosses and hordes of foes, it’s also imperative that you level up its Charge Speed as much as possible. Even with points invested, it can take quite a while to charge up, but every little bit of time saved is still time you’re not vulnerable to enemy attacks.
