PowerWash Simulator 2 review

Some of us will do just about anything to avoid having a thought, and while that constant need for stimulation is probably worth interrogating, let's set that aside for now to talk about a particularly good thought-eradicator: PowerWash Simulator. It's a bit more involved than a desktop pet, but brings me a more rewarding calm when I both want and do not want to do something.

It plays a lot like the name suggests. You get a beefy hose, fancy attachments, and hop from client to client blasting grime off of surfaces, and that's its biggest appeal: just the raw, sensory satisfaction of stripping dirt off of things. Job sites are a mix of everything from totally normal locations that look like they've been assaulted by a small, muddy tornado to more fantastical DLC destinations like SpongeBob's pineapple home or Lara Croft's mansion.

As you can imagine, there's not a lot about powerwashing to change or expand on in a sequel, but PowerWash Simulator 2 didn't need to reinvent spraying water at dirt to be worthwhile, just refine it, and it does just that. It's rich with thoughtful little changes throughout, and even in its infancy, the sequel is better in almost every way. The biggest downside is that it doesn't yet have the years of add-ons the original has accrued.

Into the cracks and crevices

Among PowerWash Simulator 2's tweaks and improvements are fresh new attachments for scrubbing grime away and soapy buffs that remove the tedium of managing too many resources.

The Swirlforce Surf Ace—a heavy-duty surface cleaner with a wide, circular head—is the best example of that. While I do get some satisfaction out of slowly running powerful wide-spray nozzles back and forth in straight lines over large, flat surfaces, it's not something that keeps me occupied for long. You've got one, maybe two, shots at those sprawling spaces in a job to keep me entertained before I'm looking for pieces of weirdly detailed crown molding to blast the dirt from.

I've already opined on how I fell in love with the new attachment while cleaning a billboard, but now that I'm done with career mode, I'm happy to report it's still a major blast for scrubbing flat spaces. It makes that part of a job quick without forfeiting the feeling of satisfaction that comes from hosing down bigger areas with a controlled, deliberate spray. If you're into the meditative motions of the first game, then I'm here to tell you that the new toys absolutely deliver.

Now couple the Swirlforce's satisfying sweeps with changes to how you soap down dirty surfaces and we're really in business. In the clean utopia of PowerWash Simulator 2, soap is free and all-purpose, eschewing the old system where you had to choose between six kinds of cleaner at $10 a bottle. It was a miserable money sink I avoided at all costs.

The sequel's superior sud system is on a short timer—you can't endlessly spray—but draining the bottle won't cost you. Instead, you soap up a target until the supply is gone, then it slowly fills back up while washing the suds away.

It may not sound like much, but soap management in the first game really ruins my relaxing brain vacations. I can't imagine paying for liter after liter of cleaning products in PowerWash 2's motel level, where even my most powerful water jets can't efficiently cleanse all the nastiness. Axing the buying and juggling of specialty concoctions makes big projects with heavy-duty demands less of a hassle, letting me sit back and enjoy what I came for: blasting stuff with water.

Good, clean fun

Co-op no longer clashes with the calm either, so I can bring a friend along with a clear conscience. While the original PowerWash Simulator had multiplayer, you couldn't share progress or profits in career mode. The host kept all the cash and unlocked access to new levels—friends had to work for free. I'm a changed woman in PowerWash Simulator 2, running an ethical gig where I pay friends for their labor and share my client list.

The change feels especially useful when recruiting for goliath tasks in later levels. I loaded into one job close to the end, saw the size, and immediately hopped back out to seek help from a friend. There were some pretty big tasks in the first game, but I can't recall any that took me as long as the handful of sprawling maps in PowerWash Simulator 2. Some seem designed with co-op play in mind, but if you're patient and don't mind spending one or two hours on a single map, you can hose them down alone.

It's even better when you remember we're living in a perfect powerwashing society with free soap. After quietly cleaning our little corners alone for a while, my co-op partner suggested, "You soap, I'll spray," and it blew my mind. That's not a fun strategy when soap is ten bucks a liter and someone works for free, but the charitable sequel universe encourages tag-teaming objects with layers of caked-on ick.

Fixer upper

I love the size variance in the available jobs—there are a total of 38 in PowerWash Simulator 2 at launch—though I remain partial to smaller, less intimidating tasks for singleplayer sessions.

New home base projects where you powerwash and arrange furniture in a personalized space add another opportunity for small-scale projects, but the system sits just on the cusp of fun in the beginning and never improves.

It's kind of like a mini furniture restoration side gig, but substantially less hypnotizing than the rug cleaning videos I watch on TikTok. Placing furniture is finicky, I couldn't even put objects on rugs, and there's no clutter. How am I supposed to enjoy a room with no lamps on side tables or trinkets on shelves? It's just hulking pieces of awkwardly placed furniture. I'm not playing PowerWash Simulator for its decor system, but this half-baked implementation feels like the antithesis of the clean, satisfying strokes its tools deliver.

The base is a bummer, but not a deal breaker. PowerWash Simulator 2 is still a major upgrade in ways that are insignificant alone, but game-changing as a whole. The additions feel too substantial to handwave as a missed update for the original, while the refinements keep me from missing all that DLC I collected for the first game.

With some of the first game's pain points sanded down, PowerWash Simulator 2 is a delightfully monotonous chore sim. If I could muster this kind of enthusiasm for any real life task just as conceptually boring I'd be unstoppable, but alas, this is the only world with free soap.