Serial Cleaners Review (PC)

Bob has managed to move all the bodies in the parking space to the trunk of his car, which is more spacious than it seems. Now, he has one big piece of evidence to retrieve, which also needs to be brought back to the car, and a lot of blood to vacuum up. So, I need to move around carefully around the police patrolling the area until I get a clear idea of which red spills are easier to quickly eliminate. And then I plan to rely on a car alarm and one activated fire extinguisher to attract the attention of most of my opponents while I get the evidence and sprint back to my own vehicle to make a clean getaway. Of course, this means I also need to find a stealth and fast way of moving the vehicle currently blocking access.

Serial Cleaners is developed by Draw Distance and published by 505 Games. I played using Steam on the PC and the experience is also available on the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X and S, the Nintendo Switch, and older consoles from Microsoft and Sony. The title offers a stealth-driven experience, with a focus on careful planning.

Four characters, all of them capable when it comes to cleaning crime scenes before the authorities can extract any clues, meet up in New York at the end of the ‘90s. They tell stories about their exploits, which become levels. Bob is able to wrap bodies up, making it easier to move them around than the standard dragging, Vip3r can hack tech, drawing attention away from her locations and opening new ways to access areas.

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Lati is the athlete, using a sort of parkour to move around more freely than the others while also being able to pick up bodies. Psycho seems the least suited to the cleaner role, able to knock policemen unconscious and use a chainsaw to cut up bodies. The game has a decent narrative and writing, drawing ideas liberally from the slickest movies of the era.

The gameplay in Serial Cleaners is all about getting rid of evidence, blood, and bodies. All the cleaners need to use their capabilities to avoid attracting the attention of the police as they scout a level, find the things that need to disappear, and then formulate a plan on how they can scoop up the evidence and find a quiet place for human remains. Once that's done, it’s only a matter of cleaning up all the remaining blood (weirdly, using a vacuum cleaner, even on snow) before making a clean getaway.

Neither of the four cleaners is equipped to actually battle the police that stand between them and their goal (apart from Psycho and even he benefits from staying hidden as much as possible). Run or find a hiding space as soon as you get spotted rather than trying to move past an opponent or knock him down. There’s always a way to exploit routes or use the environment to distract them enough to get to the bodies and evidence without detection. Most of the time, I was spotted while cleaning up the blood, which drew all my attention and allowed the police to sneak up on me.

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Serial Cleaners delivers solid stealth puzzles and interesting tools that its four characters can use to solve them. Don’t be afraid to experiment but try and form a plan, even as the cops chase you and it’s clear that the current strategy does not work. Often doing something a little dumb to see what happens is a good way of unlocking a good approach. And try to leave the blood vacuuming for last, just after you pick up the last piece of minor evidence.

Serial Cleaners uses its top-down structure well and wears its ‘90s movie influences on its sleeve, delivering a good-looking experience that deals with some seriously gruesome situations. The levels ooze bodily fluids but also personality. And it’s always easy to get into Cleaner view to get a better sense of the space and plan. The sound design is a little disappointing, with a soundtrack that tries to be subtle but stays too much in the background, and with a blood vacuum cleaner sound that does not feel gross enough.

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