In addition to a global vaccination program, PowerWash simulator is the only reason why humanity survived Covid. The 2022 version, inexplicably released by Square Enix, only required us to clean it. Clean playgrounds, houses, flying saucers, all covered in a thick layer of mud and dirt. It was and still is a Zen-like source of joy and calm, and most importantly: thanks a growing list of DLCs– will always stranger.
It may actually be unfair to suggest that the core game isn’t already weird enough. While you could be forgiven for not noticing it while playing, the easily ignored pop-up text boxes that appear while playing contain a plot involving a corrupt mayor in cahoots with an evil businessman A time-travelling scientist from the future shot down a passing flying saucer so he could continue to divert water supplies, causing every volcano on the Pacific Rim to erupt. Damn, I love that I didn’t make this up.
Thanks to Squeenix’s miraculous decision to release this absolutely wonderful oddity, that is Crunch free Developers Futurlab had access to massive IP for their DLC. So we got one Grave robbers-Free theme pack that will allow us to clean the entire outside of Croft Manor and then some Final Fantasy-related crap in the Midgar Special Pack. Since then the ambitions have gone even further, with a Spongebob-based DLC, a collection based on Back to the Futureand now – perhaps most unlikely of all – a special back on the topic is being published on February 27th Warhammer 40,000.
In this latest collection, finally shown in the trailer above, we clean the vehicles and mech suits of various Games Workshop factions 40Knot with the usual high-pressure cleaners, but with the Mark 2 Aqua Santica Arquabus (and please note my spelling).
It looks appropriately silly and epic while still offering the familiar and comforting pleasure of cleaning a dirty thing.
I have to assume that the Futurlab in Brighton, UK has a whiteboard with a wish list of outlandish options for inclusion that is then somehow ticked off from one major license to another, leaving everyone involved in disbelief. I’d like to know what’s left – surely the words “Indiana Jones” will appear somewhere (imagine cleaning the Ark of the Covenant with a spray gun).
I’m also hoping for a full sequel that integrates physics into cleaning so we can eliminate those “PING!” errors. Moments when a dirty bar suddenly shines clean, or the agony of finding the last pixel of mud on the inside of a wheel arch.
