Platforms: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
There are some games that you read a description of or see footage of and just know they are going to be for you. PowerWash Simulator was such a game for me. The first time I randomly stumbled upon someone streaming it on Twitch, I just knew I needed to get my hands on it. Luckily, after being in early access and available exclusively on PC, it finally made its way to consoles. When it was released on Xbox as part of Game Pass, I immediately downloaded it and my initial impressions were confirmed. It quickly became one of my favorite games of 2022 and it might be one of my favorite games ever made. So much so that I made sure to buy it when it was released later on Nintendo Switch. Now, after nearly 200 hours of play time across Xbox One and Switch, I figured it was a good time to drop a review. So let me explain why I love PowerWash Simulator so much.
As the player, you’ll take on the role of a cleaner that works for a power wash company and be given a variety of jobs to complete. You’ve probably already guessed it, but these jobs will task you with cleaning each area or object by blasting every last speck of dirt off with your handy power washer. These jobs will have you cleaning everything from vehicles and houses to entire playgrounds and amusement park rides, as well as some other surprises. As you clean your way through each of these jobs, you’ll receive text messages from the clients that have hired you. These messages act as the game’s narrative, which are nice to have and they get kind of interesting by the end but certainly aren’t what you’ll be coming to this game for.
PowerWash Simulator is all about the cleaning. When you arrive at each job, whatever you’ve been tasked with power washing will be caked with dirt and grime and your only goal is to wash it clean. To do this, you’ll be equipped with a power washer that has a handful of different nozzles, each with different water pressure. The caveat here is that as the pressure increases, the narrower your water beam becomes. So the higher pressure allows you to blast muck off quicker, but it will cover a smaller area than lower pressure nozzles. This allows you to tackle jobs in different ways depending on what types of materials you’re cleaning (i.e. metal, plastic, or stone) or decide how to go about cleaning based on your own preference.
As you arrive on each job, you’ll see a total percentage cleaned in the upper left hand of the screen. As you clean, this number will go up and you’ll continue until you reach 100%. What really makes PowerWash Simulator so satisfying, aside from just seeing things go from filthy to pristine, is that each job’s individual objects have their own percentage cleaned meter. So let’s say there’s a chair on your current job, once you entirely clean that chair it will flash blue and you’ll get a satisfying ding letting you know it has been completely cleaned and it will be marked off the list.
To keep things from getting too tedious, with the press of a button, all dirt will glow orange allowing you to see anything you’ve yet to clean. You can also bring up a list of objects you need to clean during your current job and it shows the percentage cleaned of each item. This also allows you to highlight any object on the list and make it flash and glow in the environment, showing you exactly where it is. You’ll never be left wondering what you may have missed or not completely cleaned.
During PowerWash Simulator’s career path, which is the main game mode, you’ll have 37 jobs to work through. As you complete these jobs you’ll earn both stars and money. Stars are earned by just completing jobs, with you getting one star for each 20% cleaned on a job. So each job can nab you five total stars. The more stars you collect the more jobs you unlock and the more items you unlock to buy in the game’s store. The store is where you’ll be able to spend the money you earn from completing each job. Here, you’ll be able to buy more powerful washers to make cleaning easier, extensions for your power washers that help clean harder to reach places, and cosmetic items such as outfits, gloves, and power washer designs.
Outside of the main career mode, there are a couple of other modes in the game. The first is called Bonus Jobs that allows you to take on a handful of new jobs that weren’t in the career mode for whatever reason. Then there is Freeplay, which lets you replay any job you’ve previously completed in the career. There is also Challenge Mode, which takes jobs from career mode and gives you a time limit or a limited amount of water to finish them. I guess this is nice to have, but I personally never got into the challenges because it takes the relaxing gameplay of PowerWash Simulator and makes it unnecessarily stressful for my tastes. On top of these modes, there are also Special Jobs that feature jobs from other popular media properties. At the time of this writing, there are currently jobs from Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy that are free to download, as well as paid DLC for Spongebob Squarepants.
While PowerWash Simulator is clearly a game I have an affinity for, it isn’t without its issues. The first being that the gameplay isn’t always the smoothest experience. There are some issues with slowdown, as well as some weird hit detection when it comes to climbing certain objects. These are just minor issues and never hindered my enjoyment, but they are there at times. Another issue I personally had is that as someone who wanted to keep playing even after completing the career and all the bonus jobs, I wished there was the option to have multiple save files or even a more robust shop to spend any extra money in.
The biggest issue I’ve run into is one I debated even mentioning in this review because it’s been a rather new one. During my entire playthrough of the Xbox version, as well as my first playthrough of the Switch version, I had little to no issues. However, a little over halfway through a second playthrough of career mode on Switch, I’ve had some serious issues with how the game saves. Whenever I exit the game during an unfinished job, when I load it back up any specific items I’ve completely cleaned will look clean, but will still be marked as 0% cleaned. When trying to clean them again, that number doesn’t change and the overall percentage cleaned for that job is completely out of whack. The only way I’ve found to fix this is to completely restart the job and do the whole thing in one go. This is a big ask for some of the later jobs as they can take a decent amount of time to complete. As this is a new issue for me, I’m not sure if a recent update did something to my save file or I just got unlucky this time around. I hate to end this on such a down note, as this game is still incredibly enjoyable, but this is certainly something worth mentioning.
As someone who really enjoys seeing things go from dirty to clean or cluttered to organized by my hand, this game scratches an itch I never knew I had. It certainly won’t be a game for everyone, but if you’re like me or if anything I’ve mentioned above sounds like something you’d enjoy, I’d highly recommend giving PowerWash Simulator a try. It has quickly become one of my go-to comfort games and just one of my favorite games in general.
