Powerwash Simulator 2 is the self-published sequel to the 2022 smash hit by FuturLab. Go beyond the town of Muckingham and clean up all of Caldera County as you clean toilets, ancient temples, and governmental corruption. There’s more muck, more gnomes, and boatloads more lore, so let’s dive in.
More than just DLC?
I was worried that this game would be just a glorified DLC to the first game and that it wouldn’t add much. However, these fears were quickly laid to rest as I got started. You have a whole host of new equipment available, including a new refilling soap nozzle, a floor swisher, a scissor lift, and the new abseil chair system, which makes cleaning the sides of buildings so much fun.
These aren’t the only updates, as the new water, dirt, and soap effects look so much better than the first game. Effects leave visible on floors that help the whole experience feel more real and look a lot better than the generic stain colours of the first game.
There are also mechanical updates with the dirt mapping and cleaning registering much better than the first game. It’s now incredibly rare to find stubborn pieces that just won’t finish no matter how hard you clean, though they aren’t totally gone.
A revamped UI and item tracking tab make cleaning much easier, too, especially when you want to find certain things for the abundant achievements on offer. Scaffolding has also been updated with ladders to the top level on two sides, which makes scaling them considerably easier, and even a new stepladder that helps to reach slightly higher spots than the little short step can provide.
All told, this makes the vertical plane of this game considerably more interesting and engaging, as there’s always a way to get to the right height you need. This also comes with a new control scheme that took a little getting used to, but once I did, I thoroughly enjoyed it; however, you can change back to the original controls in the menu if you wish.
How have things changed?
Speaking of achievements, there’s a total of forty available. There’s the standard fare of “purchase new washer and all attachments” and “apply a skin to a washer” as well as your in-level specific tasks, which are all easy enough to get (no terrible 95% clean achievement here). However, the challenge mode of the first game has also been removed. It’s not a huge loss, but it is an aspect of the game that helped you keep coming back after finishing the campaign, and now there’s only free play and the future content updates.
According to FuturLab’s roadmap, they have three sets of paid DLC based on certain unannounced intellectual properties as well as free mission updates, cosmetics, and seasonal events. This means there should be plenty to keep you returning to the game over the long term beyond the base campaign.
The campaign itself is once again thirty-eight missions, the same as the first game, with a mix of large and small jobs. The scale of these jobs is much larger now, with some late-game missions perhaps eclipsing the final level of the first game in size. So, while on paper it looks like the same amount of content, you’ll be spending a lot more time finishing this one. My own play time to reach 100% came in at 42 hours!
Plus, the story is vastly improved with new characters, references, and lore to keep you entertained, and Game Theory publishing videos for a long time to come. Not to mention the best addition of all, Ulysses the cat and her two kittens, Bubbles and Squeak, who follow you on missions and can be petted. That’s right, you can pet the cats. That alone should make it a contender for Game of the Year.
However…
Alas, Game of the Year this is not. While I’ve spent the majority of this review singing Powerwash Simulator’s praises, there are some quite critical issues that need to be addressed. Firstly, the game is taxing on your PC. Even with a 3060Ti and a good rig, I had to turn the graphics way down to get a consistent frame rate, and it still sounded like a plane about to take off. Furthermore, there are numerous glitches with you or your equipment getting stuck. The scissor lift in particular causes a lot of issues, as sometimes, for no discernible reason, it becomes totally uninteractable.
Your character also has a lot of trouble with stairs. You’ll find yourself just jumping up and down to avoid getting stuck. Also, picking up the scaffolding and ladders doesn’t stop them from being interactable in the world, so you can pick up the scaffolding and, while moving, accidentally start climbing it. It’s nothing particularly game-breaking, and I certainly didn’t experience any crashes or drastic bugs that I’ve seen others report, but it’s enough to put a damper on the experience.
FuturLab have committed themselves to continued bug fixes and quality of life improvements, so hopefully all these issues will be resolved in due time. I’ve also heard from others that the online multiplayer is severely glitched, but as I played purely single player, I can’t comment on that too much.
All in all, Powerwash Simulator 2 is definitely a game worthy of the sequel title. The improvements it brings are both many and varied, with a graphical overhaul that makes it look absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, with the bugs and performance issues being what they are, while I highly recommend the game, I also recommend waiting a bit for the first wave of patches to be released to have the best experience possible.
Developer: FuturLab
Publisher: FuturLab
Platforms: PC (Steam, Epic, Windows), PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2
Reviewed on: PC
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