Serial Cleaner Pax East 2017 Impressions

During PAX East 2017 I got hands-on with Curve Digital’s new game Serial Cleaner. Serial Cleaner is a top-down fast-paced stealth game where the Cleaner is tasked with removing or destroying evidence at a crime scene. The game has an old-school look to it and I would put it in the era of late 70’s, early 80’s cop dramas. Levels have a quota of evidence that needs to be removed. Every scene has a few bodies to be removed, evidence that needs to be destroyed, and a certain percentage of blood that need to be cleaned up. Destroying evidence is as simple at pressing the action prompt. Removing bodies requires moving the bodies to either the Cleaner’s station wagon if the level is outdoors, or by some other means if indoors. The indoor level that I played had an open window for disposal. The Cleaner uses an upright vacuum cleaner to suck the blood up from the floor making it almost comedic in the execution. While these tasks appear to be simple, all this must be done while the police are patrolling the crime scene.



The police have orange vision cones that will turn red if the Cleaner enters it, causing the officer to chase the Cleaner until they catch and beat him down causing a restart. There are hiding spots and clever ways to lose the police if the Cleaner is being chased. Although, it is better to avoid their attention by timing their patrol patterns or using the surroundings to break their line-of-sight. Care must be taken when tampering with evidence as any police in the vicinity will investigate the area where evidence has been destroyed. I had painted myself into a corner a few times by not immediately leaving the area after destroying evidence during my demo. Gameplay always stays fresh as the crime scenes change after every failed attempt. Currently there are fifteen different levels, with additional challenge modes. Serial Cleaner is currently on Steam Early Access and will be coming to Xbox One and PS4 early Summer, tentatively around June.

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