This Bed We Made Review (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, & PC)

Eavesdropping may be as close to snooping as you can get in the real world. And even then, people will look at you sideways when they know fully well they’ve probably done it too. Well, not in This Bed We Made. Every eavesdropper, snooper, and everything in between is welcome to set camp and even live here forever if they like. 

It’s a classic mystery/detective puzzle game. Yet, in more ways than one, it sets itself apart from the crowd, with neo-noir adventure at its core and an intertwining of love, heartbreak, and murder at its epicenter. For all intents and purposes, here’s our deep-dive of the fictional but surreal world in our This Bed We Made review.

Spicy Tales

We kick off at a police interrogation scene. Our cleaning lady, cum aspiring detective, has been arrested. She’s on the verge of unveiling every dirty secret and laundry she uncovered at the Clarington Hotel. But just before she spills the beans, we get thrust back to the past, to the events of the exact day at the hotel when everything turned upside down.

Our cleaning lady and protagonist, Sophie, has a nasty little habit of snooping around the guests’ personal belongings. We don’t judge her for it, though, as this is the one time you can scratch that itch to spy on others or, alternatively, revel in how proud and unashamed Sophie seems to be of it. She’s done this for a while now, working on her designated fifth floor at the Clarington Hotel. But on this particular day, Sophie’s numbered days had run out.

Not Your Everyday Puzzle

Without disclosing too much of the story details, we want you to experience the shocking twists and turns for the first time, too, and awe at their craftiness and mischief for yourself. I can go as far as to say that not everything will be what it seems. Take the first guest, for example, Sophie, who, out of the kindness of her heart, decides to return to them a missing item, then… 

What she finds in their room throws her off balance. It turns out that Guest 505 is a stalker, and her victim is none other than you. Sophie finds compelling evidence to prove so in the guest’s room. And then comes the true test of how to proceed. Will you throw away the evidence as if none of it ever existed, or will you dial 911 and report the guest? A third option, guaranteed to lead you down a rabbit hole, is to take matters into your own hands and investigate.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Each decision you make has consequences, albeit not extremely dire, to really turn the tables on the future. But there is generally some level of consequence that you need to consider before making a choice. As you begin to investigate, your actions will often involve solving puzzles or cleaning, you still have to protect your cover.

Not to worry, as the puzzles aren’t nearly as difficult as they can be. They’re hardly frustrating. Instead, they engross your every thought process into a steaming cascade of clues and revelations. You’ll often piece torn documents together and decode encrypted language. You may search for codes to unlock safes and suitcases to, well, snoop some more.

At the heart of This Bed We Made is snooping around the clients’ personal items. And that much is made apparent. You’re free to literally snoop around every single thing that catches your eye and pull up every drawer you please. As long as you’re in a guest’s room, you can do anything you please to solve the mysteries that, in a short while, grow dire and time-sensitive.

Go Out, Explore

While open-world games will give you the freedom to go out and explore the world, This Bed We Made, instead, pushes you to go out and explore people. You’re not just limited to your guests. At times, you go so far as to spy on your coworkers. Before long, several mysteries begin to unfold, and you can start to make the connections between them. 

Meanwhile, you have every tool at your disposal, whether it’s actually snooping through personal belongings or eavesdropping on conversations. If every discovery seems a little too much to keep track of, you can pull up your journal that houses every note you collect, each character’s backstory, and every solution you have uncovered so far.

Still, if the journal isn’t helpful to you, feel free to initiate Sophie’s monologue. She often gives you a hint of what to do or where to go next. But, if you want to figure everything out for yourself, you can still do so by simply avoiding pressing the monologue prompt button. Anyway, all the helpful resources and tools considered, This Bed We Made never sways from being a leisurely fun puzzle into hotel shenanigans.

Love and Heartbreak

Oh, you also do have the choice to take on a helper, an accomplice if you will, between street-smart Beth or book-smart Andrew. Whoever you choose will play a huge role in the story, as the companion is always available to help solve puzzles, all the while building an intricate relationship with them based on the choices you make.

You can choose to respond to prompts in the direction of building something more with Beth or Andrew. Or, you may choose to remain work buddies with a knack for solving crime. Speaking of crime, what starts as a stalker case quickly builds up into a, you guessed it, whodunnit murder. Far more mysteries lie within, but they all build up quite nicely toward multiple endings.

Also, based on the 1950s setting, you may unearth several societal themes of the time period that reveal quite relatable personalities and character flaws in your guests and coworkers. From gender, homophobia, and racial discrimination to infidelity and homicide, This Bed We Made leaves nothing to chance as far as deep-seated issues throughout history are concerned.

Must You Clean?

Yes and no. Some cleaning tasks, you know, wiping messes, cleaning tubs, taking out the trash, etc., are portrayed as optional. There seems to be no consequence to neglecting them or their influence on the story, for that matter. 

Moments when you hear footsteps walking down the hall, intensified by the ever-chilling clock ticking, do make you want to clean (or at least pretend to) in case someone walks in. Meanwhile, a few moments do have consequences for others. For instance, cleaning puddles in the restrooms can prevent someone from getting fired. 

It’s not a particularly difficult task, though. This Bed We Made uses generally simple and fun mechanics. A simple button press or moving the cursor over an area will wipe the area spotlessly clean. You may even find it relaxing, who knows?

Something More

With a relatively short playthrough—around five hours long—This Bed We Made can leave you craving for more, especially with the murder scene, which comes toward the final stages of the game. Factor in minor consequences and choices influencing the story, but only to a certain degree, and you come off feeling like you could use a more dug-deep version of this game.

Fortunately, you do have multiple replayability options, with choices leading to multiple endings. But the core of the mystery, which is excellent, remains the same. The only difference is that some coworkers may lose their jobs while others get promotions and the like. Only a few things change at the end, which leaves something more to be desired.

Technicalities

This Bed We Made runs smoothly; no complaints there. You may run into one or two bugs, though those hardly derail the overall compelling experience. Character models, too, are expressive. They embody emotion in their voice acting, which immerses your full attention in the cutscenes. 

Meanwhile, sound effects are top-notch. The visuals, too, in general, though at first rather peculiar, quickly catch on to fully grasp the 1950s aesthetic to a T. 

Verdict

At the heart of This Bed We Made is an engrossing tale infusing strong themes related to the 1950s societal struggles. It doesn’t shy away from mentioning and depicting these themes in the mysteries, using relatable characters and expressive voice acting to convey its message. 

Nothing is as it seems, with the first mystery branching off into exciting and compelling ones further down the road. As a result, your experience peaks with tension and intensity from start to finish, with even more desire to replay through the uncharted paths. 

With the visuals and sound holding its end of the deal to par, the only reason that may withhold you from checking it out is a distaste for the genre itself. Otherwise, absolute must-play.