Clue: Murder by Death Review: Cognitive Overload | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Also on: PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5, PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S/X

Price: $19.99

Clue is one of my favorite IPs. I love both the board game and the movie. A friend and I even created our own version of Clue at one point. We built a much larger map, added extra rooms, suspects, and weapons, and thought we were improving on the formula. What we quickly discovered was that the game started to drag on and on. There’s a reason Clue only includes a limited number of rooms, weapons, and suspects, and adding more to it wasn’t good design. In a lot of ways, Clue: Murder by Death reminded me of that experiment. There are too many rooms, too many suspects, too many weapons, and too many possible motives. Even with the two-hour time limit I was given to solve the murder, the experience felt like it dragged far longer than it needed to.

 It’s not clear how closely this is meant to tie back to the board game Clue, if at all

For starters, the game is cute. The art style looks like toys, and because of that, I was hopeful it would feel like playing the board game. However, it’s not clear how closely this is meant to tie back to the board game Clue, if at all. If there is supposed to be direct inspiration from the board game, it’s buried deep and ultimately lost in the execution.

The game opens with a call to Detective John Smith. The butler has been given explicit instructions to contact him if anything were to happen to Lord Anderson, the owner of the mansion. Lord Anderson has been murdered, and it’s up to me, as Detective Smith, to solve the crime within the two-hour time limit before Scotland Yard arrives.

I’m able to select two other characters to help me with the investigation, and this is one of the areas where the game truly shines. Each character brings a unique perspective, and when they observe something in a room, they might notice or comment on different details.

For example, I brought Mr. D (Dracula) along with me, and when he observed a hidden passage, he mentioned how it reminded him of the hidden passage in his own room. In another instance, while we were in the billiard room, he commented on playing pool with Lord Anderson. It’s a clever way to make the investigation feel more dynamic, and it adds meaningful variation based on who I choose to bring along.

The execution, however, leaves a lot to be desired. First off, the button mapping isn’t great and often feels unresponsive. For example, during the tutorial, I was instructed to pick something up. I pressed the A button to do so, but instead, the “skip tutorial” option was selected. The joystick used to move around the room is also used to navigate the UI, and I must have accidentally highlighted that option while moving to the spot I intended to interact with. As a result, the tutorial was skipped entirely.

I restarted the game to try the tutorial again, but I quickly realized it didn’t teach me much in the first place.

In the tutorial, I’m told to pick up items, even ones that seem fairly mundane. The problem is that there are a lot of items in the game, and it’s not always clear what I’m supposed to do with them once I pick them up. On top of that, each character can only carry three items at a time. One of those is a magnifying glass, which feels important, but I never really understood how or when I was supposed to use it.

Too many rooms, too many possible weapons, and too many suspects

I often found myself wandering from room to room, unsure of what I was actually looking for. There are 166 rooms to explore, which is simply too many. On top of that, it’s difficult to tell which objects in a room are important and which ones aren’t. I couldn’t even begin to count how many objects are in the game, but there are a lot.

Then there are the suspects. There are ten of them, and they aren’t the familiar characters from Clue. Instead, you’re dealing with people like Lady Rose, Mr. Benson, Dr. Livingston, and Mr. D, just to name a few. Trying to keep track of who everyone is and how they’re connected quickly became overwhelming. Ironically, the experience reminded me a lot of the Clue board game my friend and I built when we were kids. Too many rooms, too many possible weapons, and too many suspects. What should have been a fun whodunit mystery instead turned into a long and tedious experience. 

The room issue could have been managed with a better map system. Unfortunately, the map doesn’t allow me to add any notes or markers. I also didn’t always know which room I was in until I physically entered it. The only indicator on the map is a small image of the suspect who is staying in the room, but with so many suspects, that wasn’t very helpful. It was often hard to tell who was who, since there weren’t enough distinguishing features to make each character stand out.

I would have liked to see the ability to add symbols or notes directly onto the map, especially given how limited inventory space is. Dropping an item meant I had to remember exactly where I left it, and with so many rooms in the mansion, backtracking to find something I’d dropped was more frustrating than fun. That frustration is compounded by how slowly the characters move. There’s no option to run, which makes traveling back to previously visited rooms feel like a chore rather than part of the investigation

Input lag was one of the most persistent problems I had with the game overall

There is a note system in the game, where anything important I discover gets logged in a notebook. Unfortunately, accessing it is a pain. I need to press the plus button, or at least I think that’s the correct button, the input lag is so noticeable that I was never fully sure if I was hitting the right button. When it did register the input, a clock and a note icon would appear in the upper right corner of the screen. From there, I could press A to access the notes, but even then, sometimes it worked and other times it didn’t. In fact, input lag was one of the most persistent problems I had with the game overall. I would press a button to observe something, and sometimes it worked, while other times it felt like the game was still cycling through a previous selection. When combined with the sheer number of rooms I needed to explore, the lag quickly became exhausting.

Another issue I ran into was simply trying to understand what the game wanted me to do. There were moments where I needed to combine two items, but it was never clear how to do that. Other times, the game would drop hints like, “I bet there’s a book in the library for that,” but when I went to the library, I couldn’t find anything that matched what the clue was pointing toward.

At times, it felt like I needed to complete some other step before an event would trigger, but what that step was never felt obvious. One example involved a suspicious note in a suspect’s room. I couldn’t pick it up because the suspect was present. The game hinted that she would eventually leave, but no matter how many times I returned to the room, even with different characters, she was still there.

There were also plenty of moments where the game suggested I needed a specific item to bypass a trap or uncover a secret. With 166 rooms to search, trying to track down an object when I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for quickly became tiresome rather than engaging.

In the end, I was asked to present my case by naming who I believed committed the murder, what weapon was used, and the motive behind it. I wasn’t able to solve the crime during my playthrough. It became clear that solving the mystery requires multiple runs through the same two-hour loop, which didn’t appeal to me.

Final Grade: D+

Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t much fun for me. There’s a decent foundation here, but it’s weighed down by too many rooms to explore, too many suspects who start to blur together, and far too many objects to sift through. Combined with a poor map system, limited inventory space, slow character movement, unclear objectives, and noticeable input lag, the game quickly became frustrating.

Instead of feeling like a clever mystery to unravel, I felt overwhelmed. The sheer cognitive load turned what should have been an engaging investigation into something that felt more like work than enjoyment. That said, if you have a few hours to spare and enjoy obtuse mystery games that demand a lot of patience, this might still be worth a look.

Review code provided by Big Games Machine