PowerWash Simulator

Have you ever wanted to clean amusement parks, subways, monuments, and mansions, all without getting dirty yourself? Of course you have, that's something everyone dreams about! In PowerWash Simulator, you will be able to do just that. Utilize your power washer and destroy all that pesky dirt across a variety of landscapes. Take part in career mode where you will build your own business and unlock new tools and upgrades or relax in online co-op to eradicate the grime-infested locations with a partner. Now let's sit back, relax, and wash away all our troubles.

PowerWash Simulator may seem offputting on the surface, but it is way more addicting than you think. After 1 minute into the first level, cleaning this blue van, I was hooked on swapping out nozzles and making sure every inch of the van was clean. This feeling of satisfaction was only heightened by unique locations to clean like a mini golf course, steam train, and a mars rover. Hell, they even released Lara Croft's manor from Tomb Raider as a free DLC and announced a FF7 Remake one coming soon!! This game will eat your time and relax you, so let's see if that will be true on-the-go as well!

PowerWash Simulator: Max Performance

While the majority of locations work perfectly fine at the default settings, we see cracks in the bigger areas. For example, the golf course, without any TDP limit, pushes the Deck to a 24W battery drain with 80c temps and a 57-58 framerate and can drop to 40 in some spots. Depending on where you are looking and placed in the level, the framerate can bounce back, but it isn't stable. Luckily, we can fix this!

Washing Away Your Troubles (With Optimization)

My initial goal was to make sure that 60 FPS was still achievable with enough tweaking, and I am happy to say there is! I dropped resolution to 1152x720 (with SteamOS FSR Sharpness 0), anti aliasing to 2x, and dropped some shadow quality. All of this together brought the max battery drain down to 13W while keeping 60 FPS. I did encounter some minor drops when going across the map, but these lasted a moment and definitely didn't impact the game itself.

I also wanted to create a build that focused on bringing shadow quality up, since that is the main issue when it comes to framerate, but it did bring up some issues with bigger places. That being said, dropping the framerate to 50, along with keeping shadow distance at 80 and anti aliasing at 2x, allows for a stable and beautiful game that still feels smooth. There are very small few areas that do drop to 48, but this isn't common enough to warrant changes.

All of this performance is based on how big each map is as well! Small maps, like the vehicles in garages and the mars rover, are much easier on the system with how contained the level is. Other big maps, like the Lara Croft manor and Golf course, push the system much more. For these builds, I optimized for those larger levels as those are the ones that need the most help with stability.

Other than that, I found no issues with controls or visual issues within the game. I would personally increase controller sensitivity as I feel the camera pans very slowly, but that's just me personally.

Conclusion

PowerWash Simulator as a game is way more addicting than it has any right to be. The variety of locations and equipment keep things interesting while washing away the dirt is just damn relaxing. While it does need some tweaking for larger areas, PowerWash Simulator holds its own on Steam Deck really well. If you are on the fence about this one, trust me, it is a worthwhile investment of your money and time!

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