This Bed We Made review

What is it? An amateur detective game where your snooping can get you into trouble.
Release date November 1, 2023
Expect to pay $25/£21
Developer Lowbirth Games
Publisher Lowbirth Games
Reviewed on ASUS ROG Zephyrus G gaming laptop
Steam Deck Playable
Link Official site

At time of writing, I’ve never been employed as a space marine, supersoldier, bard, Spider-Man, or most of the jobs that character’s in video games tend to have. But in This Bed We Made you play as Sophie, a maid in a 1950’s hotel. I have worked as a cleaner in a hotel, so I speak with some authority when I say that Sophie should be fired immediately. 

You ‘clean’ each room by emptying the bins (good), scrubbing the bathtubs (great), placing fresh towels in the bathrooms (lovely), and making the beds by just smoothing out the sheets without even replacing the bedding (prison). “Nothing like a well-made bed,” Sophie even says afterwards. The bloody nerve. 

So if you’re looking for an immersive maid sim you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re looking for a nosy amateur detective adventure where you get to indulge your inner snoop— which I’ll begrudgingly concede is a lot more fun than making a bed properly—you’ll find a great little game here. It’s a nice example of how a new perspective can freshen up a genre, if not the bedsheets. 

Considering how much shady activity they’re involved in, the guests of the Clarington hotel are incredibly careless about leaving out incriminating correspondence, detailed records of debts unpaid, and all sorts of juicy puzzle pieces that you slowly slot together to create a picture of the room’s occupant. One guest has converted his bathroom into a photography blackroom, and it’s hard to focus on giving the tub a good scrub when you notice that several of the photos hanging up are of Sophie. Yikes. Thus begins an investigation into why exactly a guest has taken an interest in you. 

The game is told in flashback, framed by Sophie's interrogation by a police detective. A familiar