Mr. Clean

It has finally happened. I am addicted to a simulator game. It is no secret that games have started to truly mimic menial real-life tasks. From farming to mowing grass, there is something satisfying about work gamified. The latest craze comes in the form of Power Wash Simulator, which speaks heavily to my brain. Presented with a dirty surface and then being able to blast it all away with percentage upticks that just scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. It is one of those games that I say I will play for 20 mins, and end up hours deep into it. There is something truly addictive about this game and I simply cannot stop playing it.

As the name implies, this game is simply simulating power washing. The career mode ramps up the size of the jobs starting off with simply cleaning a finite object such as a car, and by the end of the game I was washing an entire block of buildings. There is a ton of variety in the items. You may be wondering how washing something can be interesting once let alone for an entire game. There is something therapeutic about slowly making progress and unveiling the beauty behind the dirt. The gamification comes from slowly getting the progress to 100% and when that ‘ding’ hits for completion, it is never not satisfying.

MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99

With each job I would earn money which could then be used to upgrade my sprayer as well as buy new attachments and soaps that would help with certain surfaces. There are also different outfits, which are good for multiplayer to showcase your own color scheme. No, there are not crazy designs, but at least there is something. I was shocked how excited I was to get my new equipment though. Being able to power through large surfaces faster due to my upgrades was just enough carrot to keep me going.

Money is not the only thing players earn during the campaign. There are also stars for each thing cleaned. This unlocks new locales to clean and with 38 in total there is a lot here. I spent nearly 50 hours cleaning everything in this game and I never got tired of it. This is the perfect turn off my brain game. Just pick a loadout, pick a job, and wash. The flavor is there too. As I was working I would get texts from various people offering me jobs and even people I knew with some interesting flavor. The one that sticks out is when cleaning the first house and them talking about the weird symbols on the house. The conspiracies. It isn’t super deep, but entertaining nonetheless.

Visually the game feels like a pretty standard simulator game. The menus are very much designed for PC, but do work well on console. The little recap of every cleaning is also a nice touch. The game runs decently and being able to simply tap a button on the d-pad to see the remaining dirt is imperative. The best part of the aesthetic is seeing what is below the dirt. For example seeing the colors slowly come forward in the playground early on is truly stunning at times. It really does a great job of showcasing the progress I was making and I found myself slowly walking around the levels seeing my progress and feeling extremely satisfied.

In addition to the career mode there is also a set of special jobs that consist of interesting things such as the Mars Rover. It is a nice diversion from the main game and a chance to do more washing. There is also a co-op mode where up to six players can tackle jobs together. This can be fun to coordinate and tackle the larger jobs. Or just hang out with friends while engaging in some satisfying cleansing. This game is truly the definition of the perfect chat room.

I did run into a few glitches such as being stuck in the environment or issues with placing items in the world. A simple reset always fixed this. This is also not likely for everyone. There just isn’t a ton of variety to the core game play so if you don’t love it at first, that is likely not going to change. Thankfully it is on Game Pass so the barrier to entry is low.

PowerWash Simulator is just a comfort game for me and I can see myself playing this for months to come. There is something extremely satisfying about its progression. Playing with friends is a blast and I just love zoning out and making slow progress. These simulation games are getting wild and this is by far the one to click with me. It had me searching prices of power washers in real life, so mission accomplished I supposed developers.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.