What do you count on from a sequel? That’s a query I’ve been asking myself ever since the first trailer for the follow-up to 2022’s superb PowerWash Simulator, which confirmed off much more of what has come earlier than, however with barely prettier graphics. Now that I’ve spent a very good six hours enjoying the launched model of PowerWash Simulator 2, and having a completely good time doing so, I’m nonetheless pondering the identical query. As a result of whereas I’m delighted to have an entire load of recent soiled buildings and autos to spray, I actually don’t really feel like I’m enjoying an entire new recreation.
To explain 2022’s unique is to explain 2025’s PowerWash Simulator 2. It’s a recreation about jet-washing monumental buildings which can be lined in dust and dirt, with a rising number of jets, nozzles and sprays. Your job is to take away each final speck of dust, at which level you receives a commission, should purchase extra gear, after which transfer on to the following venture. It needs to be the dumbest factor, and but it proves outstandingly soothing, even cathartic, as you methodically make a gross factor get shiny and clear. And whereas I’m delighted to report PW2 improves on the unique in a bunch of various methods, what this quantities to is tweaks, streamlining the extra fussy and fewer pleasing features, and fixing the weirdness of how the primary recreation dealt with cleaning soap. All very welcome, however none of it revolutionary. It is a refinement, not a step ahead, and that leaves me within the peculiar place of being very completely satisfied enjoying the sport, whereas nonetheless essentially upset to not have one thing new.
Provided that I don’t have any huge new ideas to introduce, let’s get proper on to speaking about these enhancements. First up, whereas the menus are nonetheless ludicrously convoluted, the very worst side of the primary recreation’s retailer is gone: cleaning soap. In PowerWash Simulator, you wanted to purchase refills for all method of various kinds of detergent for various soiled surfaces—expensive refills that lasted actually seconds, and I nonetheless suspect made little to no distinction in any respect. You would type of persuade your self it made a brick wall clear a bit quicker, nevertheless it may simply as simply have been a placebo impact. Now that’s all gone, and cleaning soap is only a factor you at all times have. In actual fact, it’s a single button press to swap between your washer and your soap-sprayer, with suds accumulating on soiled surfaces in a really satisfying manner. It’s one thing that the primary recreation ought to have carried out.
Oh, and it now makes a distinction. You’ll often discover bits of cussed dust, particularly on glass, that received’t simply spray off with water. So click on, cleaning soap, click on, spray, and now it’ll go. It provides a tiny further component, and its unfussy and rewarding to do. It’s one thing the primary recreation ought to have carried out.
Subsequent up is a extra rational use of your private home base. Within the first recreation you’d often wash folks’s autos in your individual storage, and the sport made play of the truth that you owned this enterprise and constructing, however ultimately it was solely surroundings. Whereas it actually doesn’t add something vital, your online business’s places of work are actually properly utilized in PW2. They’re explorable, and you may spend your cash on furnishings and trinkets to embellish the house—utterly pointless, however with the stunning bonus of all the pieces you purchase being totally filthy (the place are you procuring?!), and needing you to powerwash them clear first. Upstairs are your places of work, together with cabinets lined in trinkets based mostly on every accomplished job that allow you to return to play them once more exterior of story mode, after which a big map of the realm from which you’ll be able to select story and bonus missions. Or you may eschew this completely and simply entry the roles from the menu as earlier than. (However if you happen to did, you’d miss out on enjoying together with your three pet cats.) It’s one thing the primary recreation ought to have carried out.
Past this…um. Come on, there must be one thing else…Oh! You possibly can transfer the ladders and frames round extra simply, and whereas it nonetheless appears to be utilizing the identical damaged tech that has them refuse to be put down in utterly legit locations however completely satisfied to be positioned in order that they’re clipped by partitions, it’s all higher to make use of. These enormous frames with all of the steps now have ladders on the skin so you may quickly attain the highest, and there are additionally mechanical cherry pickers for reaching far increased. It’s all stuff the primary recreation ought to have carried out.
After all, it’s additionally a prettier recreation. Not solely is all the pieces extra detailed and higher lit, however there are good results reminiscent of little animations of splattered dust as you clear, and each water and cleaning soap results that make them look as if they’re flowing. They’re not although, and that’s such a damned disgrace, as a result of some precise physics was my primary want for this sequel. It’s aesthetically pleasing, however you continue to don’t have anything like water trickling down surfaces, or mud puddling on the backside to be washed away, or any of the seemingly apparent options so as to add to a sequel.
That was, actually, one of two elements I suggested a PowerWash sequel would definitely have to add. The opposite, and it’s much more damning that this hasn’t improved, is the way in which the sport both has a nonetheless very soiled floor instantly PING! clear earlier than you’re carried out washing it, or has you searching down the one pixel of dust on a railing earlier than it’ll allow you to transfer on. My idea on this within the first recreation was that it have to be based mostly on the proportion of dust remaining on any part—maybe deciding a floor is clear if you happen to’ve cleared possibly 98 p.c of the dust. So in case you have an enormous flat space of wall, that remaining two p.c is extremely seen and annoying if you’re not allowed to clear it, whereas on a tiny characteristic it’s a microscopic speck that’s infuriating to seek out. And, maddeningly, it’s precisely the identical right here. I don’t know how one can make video video games, however I nonetheless consider that altering the mathematics from “percentage of total surface” to “percentage of total surface relative to size” can’t be an insurmountable drawback.
I’m extremely conscious of simply how ridiculous I sound, selecting aside these components in a lighthearted recreation about washing playgrounds, with a storyline about some gems being stolen from an enormous merman statue whose magic beam had been stopping a volcano from erupting. Not least contemplating that I’m completely having fun with the sport! However then, I’m nonetheless largely at a loss as to how this isn’t only a big DLC pack for the primary recreation with some essential UI enhancements. Or as we used to say within the olden days, an growth pack.
So sure, please, if you happen to had been for some purpose ready for my blessing to spend your $25 on PowerWash Simulator 2 (or to obtain it from Recreation Move I suppose), then sure, go proper forward! Heck, $25 could be an important value for an growth pack of this monumental dimension! That is very a lot PowerWash Simulator However Barely Higher, and that’s a very good factor to have. It’s not a sequel although, actually, is it? Is it? I don’t bloody know.
