Chronos; The New Dawn
HDR analysis Chronos; The New Dawn on PC and PS5 Pro.
It's the same HDR implementation on PC and PS5.
The biggest issue by far with HDR in this game, that mostly takes place in dark areas, is a massive black level raise at standard in-game settings.
Picture 2 shows the massive black level raise with the standard in-game settings in picture 3.
The root cause of the black level raise is the same as in Silent Hill 2. It's a Shadow Color Offset in color grading settings (see picture 1 for explanation, from the RenoDX mod on Nexus mods).
PC:
On PC we got a native HDR RenoDX HDR mod in Oct 2025. It totally overrides the in-game settings, so don't worry about them. It fixes the black level raise and gives us RenoDX's usual in-game settings, like paper white etc.
Picture 4 is with using the RenoDX HDR mod.
So use RenoDX on PC, as always.
PS5:
There is no fix for the black levels, but GamingTech has made some good recommendations to how you can adjust it on consoles. See them in this link.
I have tried them. They lower the black levels and shadows a lot. It does not fully solve the black level raise, but it's close. The sacrifices you have to make are a huge loss of detail in shadows compared to the RenoDX mod. I think it's the best you can do on console, so see his video and try them out.
