This Bed We Made Review (PS5)

Don’t worry, the snooping master is on the case!

I’ve found that walking sims, or walking sim-esque, games are a mixed bag for me. I’ve liked some of the ones I’ve played and equally didn’t like some. So when I heard about This Bed We Made, I didn’t know whether to pick it up or not. I thought the premise was interesting, but was unsure whether or not I’d like the gameplay. As you can see, I ended up playing it anyway. I was just too interested in the story and the thought of being able to snoop around was just too tempting. So, how did it turn out?

Taking place in Montreal, Canada on 1958, it’s just been a couple days after Valentine’s Day. We play as Sophie Roy, a maid that works at the Clarington Hotel and she’s in the middle of her shift. More accurately, in the middle of cleaning a room. Well, technically the game starts with Sophie being led to an interrogation room, walking past rooms that you can eavesdrop, and asked to recall what happened before sending us to that faithful day. Anyway back to it, Sophie is in the middle of cleaning a room as she hums to a song being played on the radio. She makes observations that you can’t really avoid, but she goes a couple steps further as she reads papers guests leave out, pick up items to look at them, and even open their suitcases to snoop inside. Not the best thing to do, but at least she doesn’t steal.

After taking a break where she reads her favorite gossip magazine as two other women gossip across from her, she takes a little deter from cleaning the floor she manages to clean up a mess made in the lobby. This is where we meet Beth and Andrew, the receptionist and bellboy respectively, as well as eavesdrop between the boss and the governess which helps establish all of the character relationships despite not meeting a lot of them. Sophie soon returns to cleaning and little did she know that the next room would jump start. Room 505, who you learn is home to a Mr. Spade through Sophie finding something he dropped and wanting to return it to him, seemed normal. That is until Sophie notices a strange red glow coming from the bathroom. Investigating it reveals that Mr. Spade made the bathroom into a red room and he was developing pictures of Sophie. Sophie snooping in a guest’s luggage. She understandably freaks out as she not only can get in trouble and can be blamed for stealing something if a co-worker wants her gone, but someone was watching her. That’s not even all as Mr. Spade has a yarn map. A yarn map where he seemingly went to all the places Sophie recently went to.

Is Sophie being stalked? Who really is Mr. Spade? Is there anyone else he’s stalking and taking pictures of? What are the other guests hiding in their rooms? These questions run through Sophie’s mind, and undoubtedly ours, and this starts us at the start of various mysteries that seem to be intertwined. Some may call it fate, but some may just call the guests planning all this. That bad joke aside, I won’t spoil the mystery as it’s best to go in knowing nothing past this point, but all the guests Sophie snoops are all connected in some way or another. As you find out more about the guests that were unlucky enough to be here during the snowstorm, more questions arise. It’s up to you to find out the truth and piece everything together. Especially since it’s important to the murder.

I loved the story and the writing of This Bed We Made. Maybe it’s just me who likes to hear about gossip and maybe likes snooping a bit myself, but just being a character that snoops around already won me over. And the game does this well. It’s even better that the story is a mystery story that is intriguing. This Bed We Made starts on a great hook with the interrogation room, another hook as you hear a strange bang before Sophie goes on break, and then the mystery is in full force once you go into Mr. Spade’s room. It really helps that all the guests seem to be living some interesting lives. I do suggest, though, to not go in expecting a murder mystery. A murder does happen, yes, but the mystery of who the guests are and how they all connect takes the main stage. I also really enjoyed the characters and how they were written. They all felt like they could be real people and the dialogue was a delight to listen to. It’s a shame we don’t get to meet a lot of the characters, but I’d take some eavesdropping and Beth and Andrew being the most fleshed out and likable.

The gameplay is pretty easy to get the hang of and if you’ve ever played a walking sim/walking sim-esque game you’ll know what to do. Like many other games in the genre, you’ll be walking around, picking objects up, and reading documents. Sophie’s walking pace is actually set at a nice pace. You can pick up a lot of objects to look at them, and some of them do have some physics and there are strangely just two objects that you can open. And of course, reading documents. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t mind reading all of the documents here as they all were written well and incorporated into the mystery. Just make sure to flip the paper just in case there’s writing there and to keep a look out for the selection mode prompt. Pinpointing the selection points will have Sophie make an observation and connect it to a puzzle (if one is going on) or to the mystery.

That’s not all though, as Sophie still needs to do her maid duties while she’s snooping (investigating) around. This just means to throw away any trash, making sure to keep their personal belongings where they are, making the beds, taking dirty cups, replacing towels, and wiping up anything dirty. If this makes you nervous, I wouldn’t worry about it. I was nervous too, but it’s a pretty quick affair. Sophie does clean for a living and in a job that prioritizes speed after all.

Alongside being a little snooper and trying to piece together all the information to reveal the truth, there are also some puzzles here and there. I actually really liked these as the difficulty was just right, hard enough to have you searching for the answer and easy enough to find/figure out after a little snooping. This is actually where the selection mode comes in as it does help by having Sophie take notice of it which helps when trying to solve some of the puzzles or focus on specific details for you to try and put together what was really going on later.

There are some key points where your actions do have an effect on the world. You can either do nothing or do something, like an early example is a puddle that Andrew can slip on if you don’t mop it up. Though the rest aren’t immediate like that, as it has more to do with what’s going to happen to the characters after this event takes place. There are also multiple endings, which takes the results of these actions (or in-action), how well you cleaned, and the result of the interrogation.

You can pick your acolyte, or confidant, between two characters: Beth or Andrew. This is basically who you’ll be talking to for the rest of the game and will help Sophie throughout. Personally, I picked Beth, as she was all for the gossip and snooping. Beth is kind of a bad influence, but is just the right person to talk about some gossip you overheard or to lowkey encourage you to snoop around. Andrew just seemed like he slightly disapproved, just enough to make Sophie feel bad but not enough to rat her out, which is why I didn’t go for him. Though I am planning on doing a second playthrough with him as I did enjoy the game enough to 100% it. I have seen some parts with Andrew as Sophie’s acolyte and while it seems both of them do say similar things (which is to be expected), it does look like they incorporated their personality so their script isn’t one to one.

There is also some romance here, as there are some points where a flirt option pops up with your acolyte and you can end up kissing them at the end. I did find the romance inclusion to be fine, especially since it wasn’t intrusive in the narrative.

Another addition that I’d like to mention is Sophie’s journal. It turns out that all throughout the game Sophie will write in her journal. As you progress through the story, Sophie will write a quick entry in her journal about what happened and she even has some character bios so we can have more information on the characters (or just a place with all the information together for the hotel guests). There is also a Clues section so you can look back. Everything is written in Sophie’s voice, aside from Clues of course, which really brings personality to a section probably would have been dull without it.

You can also hear Sophie’s thoughts, which is mainly to remind you what you have to do and a hint if you’re on a puzzle. My love for Sophie definitely helped me like this aspect as I always tapped the button when she had a new thought.

I honestly loved the look of the game. I loved the subversion of the police interrogation being in black and white and the actual events you’ll be playing as is in full color despite technically being a flashback. I found it really made all the colors pop and it showed what Sophie’s emotional state must have been. You can really tell why Clarington Hotel is popular with how good the accommodations are and the comfy vibe it gives off. And on the flip side, you can also tell why Sophie and her co-workers are just frustrated with how the hotel is being managed and all the repairs it needs as you go into employee only areas. There was also some art made, like for posters or for books, which I really liked as well.

I also did like the music and sound effects. It’s a shame the radios went out early due to the snowstorm as I really liked the song that was playing. Funnily enough, I thought there was no music after that, but there is actually some light background music that sometimes plays. It’s usually during a cutscene or when making a discovery and it’s quite nice. It’s light and nice enough that it seems like part of the ambiance. I also did like all of the sounds, like the sounds of papers being wrinkled as it’s picked up, cleaning has a pleasant squeaking sound with it (as strange as that sounds), and the sounds of Sophie’s shoes hitting the floor as she walks. It’s all pleasant.

Did I mention the voice acting yet? Cause it’s great here as well. I played with English voice acting and I think they all did a great job. Especially for Sophie as she has a pleasant voice that you don’t mind hearing all throughout. Their personalities or emotions are acted well too, like Sophie’s shyness or Beth totally not loving the gossip.

The performance on the PS5 is pretty good, but it did freeze for a second or two every once in a while. I’m not sure why, as I did turn off motion blur (as the freeze always had a massive blur) and the game doesn’t autosave often enough for that to be the reason.

Verdict

I was pleasantly surprised by This Bed We Made. I went in expecting having to force myself to keep playing, but it wasn’t long until I was hooked. I’m glad I made sure to play this on a weekend, when I had a lot of free time, as I ended up spending the whole night totally engrossed in the mystery the story presented. While the murder mystery will come in too late for some and there is a mystery or two still left hanging, I’d say This Bed We Made is damn near perfect with it’s nice sound design, good walking speed, intriguing mystery, likable characters, good atmosphere, and great dialogue. This Bed We Made turned out to be just what I was hoping it would.

It is a short experience, my playthrough where I looked at everything was about 5 hours and 30 minutes, but I honestly think it’s worth it. It’s a very enjoyable experience and the game does encourage you to at least do two full playthroughs.