Published 07/01/2026

PowerWash Simulator 2

Back in 2022, PowerWash Simulator took over my life. As the kind of Guy who loves ‘2nd’ monitor games, PowerWash was the perfect game for me to kick back, wash some dirty crap, and watch a TON of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And then it was on sale on Switch, so it continued to take over my life. And then my save got deleted. So I did it AGAIN. To say that I’m a fan of the original game is an understatement - I adore it for all the weirdness it brings, especially its weird-ass story. So when they announced a full sequel to the game, I was over the moon. Did it hold up?

Well, yeah. It’s not hard to make a good sequel to something with such a good foundation. I will concede, however, that PowerWash Simulator 2 does feel a little bit like a massive expansion to the original; the new bells and whistles are good, and there is nary a bad job to clean up, but it does lack that one something that makes you really go ‘WOW!’. For better or worse, PowerWash Simulator 2 is just more PowerWash Simulator - and considering how much I’ve played of the original, this isn’t a bad thing for me, but I’d hesitate to recommend it to anyone who didn’t like the origins, or perhaps looking for something a little more innovative.

Everything Old Is Dirty Again

As you’d expect, the general loop of the game is pretty much exactly the same. As the powerwashing extraordinaire, your job is go into a wide variety of locations, ranging from dirt-encrusted cars, filth-enshrouded bathrooms, or the seminary of a sect of silent monks, and clean every speck of dirt, dust, grime and gruel from every surface you can see. It’s as simple as you’d expect; it’s the kind of game you’ll know if it clicks with you minute one, but personally, it’s one of the most relaxing, yet addictive gameplay loops I can possibly imagine. Wash, wash (dig dig), wash wash (dig dig). More importantly, you get a reeeeal nice ‘ding’ each time something is fully cleaned - if you want some real satisfaction, go wash one of the bikes or something, the amount of satisfaction you’ll get… ahhhhh.

Every section of a build you clean, you’ll earn some currency which can be spent on stronger powerwashing equipment and upgrades for each tier. One of my few complaints with the original game was the overly linear progression of powerwashers - each one being better than the next - and whilst that’s still somewhat the case here, they did remedy the issue somewhat. Now, between each tier of a ‘normal’ power washer, you can buy one that has a smaller cleaning radius but a much stronger jet, trading efficiency for power. Truth be told, I did mostly stick to using the ‘normal’ power washers, but the fact I actually had options is nice. Soap, frequently bemoaned as useless in the original game, got a much needed upgrade. Rather than directly removing dirt on their own, soap is generally utilized to deal with tougher dirt; you simply apply a layer of soap to whatever you’re cleaning, and -then- wash the dirt to easily remove it. I still didn’t find myself using soap quite as much as the devs likely intended - especially when you get the later-tier tools that will cut through pretty much any dirt without fuss - but the fact I wanted to use them at all speaks volumes to the glow-up they provided.

The only major additions to the washing in the game are a few new tools at your disposal. Easily the most useful is a circular, floor-based power washer that cleans almost everything on a flat surface easily. It pretty much exists for the start of so many non-vehicular stages to just do a tour of the area and clean every floor you can get your grubby lil’ paws on. The second tool only pops up occasionally, but it’s no less entertaining. Certain areas will have you washing buildings or structures with a window-washer platform, allowing you to swing rapidly up and down, removing the need for the utilization of ladders or portable platformers. They’re not really a huge addition, but they’re fun, and they work well with the more frequently vertically directional levels that are potted throughout the game.

Several jobs also have more ‘phase’ like elements to it; you’ll find yourself cleaning one building, and you’ll check your list and be amazed that you’ve cleaned nearly everything, but you’re not even half-way through the level! Upon completing that last task, some element will change - it could be a door opening, or new, equally filthy elements being shuffled onto the field - and you’ll continue the work. These are all some of the best levels in the game, creating jobs that feel a lot more dynamic and ‘alive’, for lack of a better term. It’s just a shame that only a handful of jobs actually utilize this structure - it would’ve been amazing for jobs like the massive shopping mall, which can feel like massive slogs at times, and the phases would break it all up.

I’d also note that the game feels genuinely beautiful at times; the colours in the world just seem to pop a lot more, creating locales that just stick out in my mind that much more. Seriously, for some reason the Gas Station job, a tiny little shop in the middle of a vast desert highway was really evocative. Like other elements, the graphics are more iterative than innovative in this game, but I just think the use of colour has been utilized way, way better, especially in the way it contrasts with the brown-grey goo of the grime you’re cleaning everywhere. Even on the Switch 2, likely the weakest version of the game, the game usually held a rock solid 60FPS and the texture quality was perfectly fine - though for some reason, the little timelapse showing your efforts at the end of each stage still looks like it’s rendered in 144p, just like the first game on the OG Switch; I don’t really mind, it’s more charmingly hilarious to me, but it’s still a bit baffling it looks THAT Bad.

The Cost Of the New

The sole major addition to the game’s overall structure is a sort of hub zone you can visit between jobs, which is set in your newly established powerwashing headquarters. Here, you’ll have a huge lobby that you can decorate with furniture purchased with a secondary currency utilized for cosmetics and whatnot. Of course, before you can decorate it, you’ll need to wash each and every piece of furniture first! Ultimately, I’m not huge on this element of the game; I never really spent much time in the lobby to start with, since I just wanted to get washing, but it’s fun for those who love a bit of decorating, plus if you just want a little extra material to wash, spending some of your currencies on a nice sofa or something. As a side note: hilariously, in-universe the reason you have to start over with your basic tools is because you blew ALL your money on this new headquarters - a HQ that I never actually used really. That’s just funny to me.

Oh yeah, if you actually want to buy all this, you’ll need to utilize the game’s secondary currency, which you’ll earn alongside your normal money from jobs. The existence of this second currency is a little bit befuddling; it’s used to buy furniture in our base and to get cosmetics for your character (something not really useful to me, as someone who plays solo), but the fact of the matter is you already don’t have enough to spend your main currency on - you’ll earn all your washer upgrades two thirds of the way through the game, and then you’re just buying minor upgrades that you really don’t need. By the end of the game, I was amassing a fortune in both currencies, since I’d bought everything I needed with both. I’d prefer a sole currency that just has a better balance of things to buy, but ultimately, I think this is a pretty minor nitpick that won’t apply to 90% of players.

Regardless, even if it’s not quite to my taste, I’m glad there’s something to do outside the mostly linear career mode. Because it’s just a little sad that the bonus jobs from the original game - jobs that didn’t take place in the ‘canon’ of the game’s career mode - didn’t return in the sequel. It’s not a massive loss, as the larger number of levels - and the greater variety in what you’re washing - makes up for it, but it does lead to you losing out on cleaning such locales as radio telescopes or a goddamn Mars Rover, experiences that really held set the weirdness of the original game. They were just a nice break from the more grounded experiences in the career mode, and it would’ve been nice to do some really out-there stuff in the sequel, but I suppose we’ll be getting no small amount of DLC - free and otherwise - that’ll satiate that hunger.

I Need MORE Story In My PowerWashing!

Lastly, I wanna bring up the game’s story. I’d probably wager that there’s as many people who actually play this game - at least a tiny bit - for its story then those who don’t, but the original game had a genuinely wild, hilariously weird background narrative that really raised the ‘stakes’ of your cleaning experience, and ramped up in some equally insane ways. Saving the world from an erupting supervolcano by powerwashing a gigantic monolith you were predestined to wash thousands of years ago does that. Sadly, I don’t think the story in the sequel quite holds up to this weirdly lofty standard. The writing is perfectly fine, don’t get me wrong; you’ll constantly be receiving texts from your clients, friends, denizens of the various counties, and learning about the devious machinations of the evil mayor. But it doesn’t build up and release the same way the first game did; by the time in original that I was nearing the end, all the writing was pushing me towards this stressful, final encounter, but conversely, the writing of the sequel is light enough that I was almost surprised when I reached the finale, because the build-up wasn’t supported.

Maybe I’m silly for getting so into the story of these games, but I think it’s an underrated, subtly important element to it that just wasn’t up to snuff. It was *fine*, but I was truly wondering if they could up the stakes from last time. Maybe in round three.

Like I said, PowerWash Simulator 2 is certainly a more conservative sequel; there’s a few new bells and whistles, and the general scope of the level-to-level experience feels a bit bigger, but there’s never that moment that you really feel like you’re playing a bespoke, totally new game. PowerWash Simulator 2 is still really, really fun, the perfect chill-out game to listen to a podcast to, or kill a few minutes on the couch. Do I wish it had just a little bit more new stuff to show off? Yeah, but the core concept of PowerWash Simulator has been blasted to a mirror sheen in this sequel, and I’m perfectly satisfied with the forty-odd hours I spent in its weird, dirty world.