If you find the very idea of PowerWash Simulator 2 baffling, try stripping it down to its essence: a sequel to a beloved first-person shooter that adds more weapons, tools, levels, lore, and customization. When you put it like that, developer FuturLab’s deep cleaning simulator is as video gamey as video games get.
It’s a thought I kept coming back to as I spent hours cleaning mold out of public restrooms and blasting rust off cars. When the original PowerWash Simulator (a game whose title tells you everything you need to know about it) hit early access in 2021, I approached it like a gag gift at a holiday party. I found its cleaning gameplay legitimately satisfying, but I thought of it less as a proper game and more as an ironic stunt executed to perfection. With its content-loaded sequel, I no longer see the calming cleaning game as an elaborate bit. What makes killing monsters more legitimate as a game premise than washing your house, anyway?
PowerWash Simulator 2 doesn’t drastically alter its predecessor’s formula. It’s still a slow-paced chill-out game where you play as a cleaner tasked with fixing up filthy messes. (It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.) Each gig in its story mode presents you with a building or object caked top to bottom in gunk. All you have to do is blast it all off with your tools. That mundane idea remains remarkably satisfying. It feels like you’re making a painting in reverse, restoring everything from a street sweeper to a carnival booth filled with prizes.
Image: FuturLab
Most of the jobs are straightforward, occasionally testing my spatial logic as I work around the curves of a teapot-shaped shop. Some of the best ones in the new batch of missions get more creative. An early one has me washing what looks like a simple bench. When I finish wiping the dirt away, it rises from the ground and reveals a full stall. That kicks off a multi-part job that plays like a parody of the surprise second phase of a Dark Souls boss.
You could read PowerWash Simulator 2 as a work of satire, if you still can’t take it seriously. I mean, come on: it’s objectively funny that you use your money to buy new powerwashers and nozzles, as if you’re assembling a loadout in Call of Duty. Buying a circular washer that can scrub flat surfaces in an instant is like unlocking a bazooka. The sequel even finds a way to add “gadgets” into the mix that bring more verticality to its missions, like a scissor lift and a hanging seat that allows you to reach a billboard. All of these additions allow you to “get good” at cleaning.
A lot of games are chores. PowerWash Simulator 2 is just honest about it.
It still sounds a little absurd when I write it all down. Why would anyone play a game about doing chores? It seems like a fair question on paper, but it’s one that falls apart once you’re sufficiently hypnotized by the blissfully relaxing cleaning loop. How is polishing a moss-covered van different from fighting Moss Mother in Hollow Knight: Silksong? They’re both video game bosses to be toppled in some way, aren’t they? Sure, I’m not slashing at the windshield or parrying tailpipe smoke, but I’m still locked in an endurance battle against a foe that I need to whittle down with patience and precision. What makes Silksong a game that we’re supposed to take more seriously, placing it on an awards season pedestal that something like PowerWash Simulator could never hope to see? Is it because slashing a sword is more serious than spraying a hose?
The more you deconstruct the experience, the more PowerWash Simulator 2’s legitimacy becomes apparent. Its appeal lies in the way it abstracts all of the usual hooks that video games grab you with. There are rewards and progression. There are tons of levels with varying degrees of difficulty. The sequel even introduces base decoration as a new feature, letting you buy furniture from a magazine and place it in your home base (after cleaning it, of course). All of it sucks me in and keeps me playing just as much as Hades 2.
Image: FutureLab
If it sounds like I’m overthinking a game about scrubbing surfaces, it’s because PowerWash Simulator 2 gives you a lot of time to think. The sequel is as meditative as ever, in a way that no doubt makes it a niche pleasure. I couldn’t fault anyone for finding that the repetitive nature of its jobs, especially ones that take hours to complete, gets old fast — especially when upgrades like new nozzles hardly make a noticeable difference. That’s the one way in which it’s actually a chore, but you could apply that same fault to Absolum or Ball X Pit too. A lot of games are chores. PowerWash Simulator 2 is just honest about it.
Even still, its hooks are firmly in me. I’ve spent long hours on the couch completing job after job, experiencing that same “one more run” feeling I get from a roguelike. Maybe that says more about how games are designed to suck you in and keep you engaged. PowerWash Simulator 2 no doubt wants to achieve that with its live service-like setup. It will get more levels. It will probably get goofy crossovers like Call of Duty. It is, after all, a true video game; it’s just one that dares you to say that it’s not, so it can blast your argument away like dirt stuck in a fender.
PowerWash Simulator 2 will be released Oct. 23 on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PC using a prerelease download code provided by FuturLab. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
