Cronos: Lazarus Gameplay Reveals Pathfinder’s Teleport, Decoy Powers and Gladius Weapon
Bloober Team has published a new developer diary for Cronos: Lazarus, showing off the Pathfinder’s Teleportation and Decoy abilities alongside a new close-quarters weapon called the Gladius. The video, titled “Becoming the Warden,” is the clearest look yet at how the upcoming expansion for Cronos: The New Dawn will play compared to the original 2025 survival horror release.
The diary confirms that Lazarus puts players in the boots of the Pathfinder, an agent of the Collective who players already know becomes the game’s chief antagonist, the Warden, in the base campaign. Rather than repeating the New Dawn’s slower, resource-conscious loop, Bloober Team is pushing the DLC toward a faster, more combat-forward style built around mobility and aggression.
Teleportation and Decoy Are Designed to Work Together
The headline addition is Teleportation, which lets players travel around the environment quickly, reach new areas, and flank enemies during combat. Paired with it is Decoy, an ability that creates an image of the Pathfinder that distracts enemies while the real character moves elsewhere.
Crucially, the two powers aren’t standalone gimmicks. Bloober Team’s diary shows that Teleportation will reduce the cooldown on Decoy, encouraging players to chain the two together. According to Insider Gaming’s write-up of the footage, Decoy allows the Pathfinder to deploy an image of himself to attract the enemies and then take them down, and it works really well with Teleportation, allowing players to get a jump on their enemies. AllKeyShop similarly reported that players can deploy a decoy to draw aggro, teleport behind the distracted group, and execute rapid strikes, framing the combo as the DLC’s answer to crowd control against groups of enemies.
Gladius Replaces the Dagger for Faster, Deadlier Strikes
The dev diary also introduces the Gladius, a new melee weapon that succeeds the dagger players carried through Cronos: The New Dawn. GamingBolt described it as a more “deadlier” version of the Dagger, which is “quicker and stronger.” Wccftech’s coverage of the same footage called it a sharper, deadlier evolution of the original dagger, described as faster and more explosive in its damage output, language that fits the expansion’s broader push toward close, aggressive engagements rather than the cautious skirmishes of the base game.
AltChar’s breakdown of the reveal noted that the Gladius is a deadly version of the dagger players receive at the start of Cronos: The New Dawn, suited for close-quarters combat, reinforcing that this is a direct upgrade path rather than an entirely new weapon class.
A New Collective Envoy Hunts the Pathfinder
Beyond mechanics, the diary teases a new threat built specifically to counter the Pathfinder’s new toolkit. Insider Gaming reported that the Collective has sent a new threat more dangerous than the Orphans, a new envoy assigned to hunt down the Pathfinder, and confronting this foe will be challenging as it has been specifically designed to hunt the Pathfinder. Bloober Team frames this as a reversal of roles for a character players already know survives to become the story’s antagonist.
Twisted Voxel’s account of the same dev diary added narrative context, noting that the Warden’s journey centres on a deeply personal mission involving someone he is obsessed with, and he chooses to pursue that mission alone despite strong opposition from the Collective. That framing lines up with GameReactor’s description of Lazarus as a chance to follow in the footsteps of the character’s youth and see how he became the foe we ultimately knew him as before the credits rolled on the main game.
Fall 2026 Launch Across PC, PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2
Bloober Team has not locked in an exact release date, but multiple outlets confirm Cronos: Lazarus is scheduled for release in Fall 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. That Northern Hemisphere autumn window lands during spring in New Zealand and Australia, so local players should expect the expansion alongside the rest of the world rather than on any staggered regional schedule.
The expansion arrives on the back of solid commercial footing for the base game. AllKeyShop noted that Cronos: The New Dawn recently generated enough revenue to cover its production costs, nine months after its launch, giving Bloober Team the stability to experiment with a new direction in the upcoming Cronos: Lazarus DLC. That financial cushion appears to be underwriting the studio’s bet on a more action-driven spin-off for one of its most talked-about horror properties.
For fans who spent Cronos: The New Dawn rationing resources and avoiding fights, Lazarus is shaping up as a deliberate tonal swing: same universe, same eventual villain, but a playstyle built around movement, misdirection and a faster blade.
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