While the stealth is mostly handled well, Serial Cleaners is an incredibly gamey game. Lati can vault over low barriers and leave graffiti on the floor that distracts police, and main guy Bob can wrap bodies to avoid public suspicion. Erin is a hacker, who can use her skills to remotely manipulate switches and noise sources, and can crawl through ventilation systems.

However, there’s never enough space to dispose of all of them. Then you can stick them in lockers or cubicles to keep them out of the way.

Hal the psycho can chop up bodies with a chainsaw and then throw the limbs at NPCs to knock them out (they’ll also pass out if they catch him in the process of dismemberment). You can’t choose which Cleaner you take on which mission as the entire game is narrative-based, and they work individually (although you can sometimes call in help which gives you another way out or trunk to dispose of bodies and severed limbs).Įach Cleaner is different though. In almost every instance, you’ll need to do it while avoiding police, investigating detectives, security guards, other criminals, or nosy passers-by. Working with psycho Hal, hacker Erin, and young protégé Lati, Bob recounts his most famous clean-ups and asks the team to recount theirs, including his recruitment of each of them.Īll missions have the same basic set up: crime has happened, there’s blood, bodies and evidence all over the place, and you need to clean it up. Taking the form of a series of flashbacks and set-pieces throughout the 70s, 80s and the game’s present day 90s setting, Serial Cleaners follows the fortunes of a group of crime scene cleaners led by Bob, the Winston Wolf-like protagonist of the first game. The simple sprite-work of Curve Digital’s original is replaced with detailed environments and much more complex level design, and the result is a clever, entertaining, yet infuriatingly paced stealth game.

As a sequel-slash-reboot to 2017’s Serial Cleaner, Serial Cleaners (plural) is quite the step up in both visuals and gameplay.

Serial cleaner nintendo switch