Whilst it doesn’t have the chops of a Powerwash Simulator 2, the demo of Clean Up Earth suggests a nice cosy “dad-game” with an interesting multiplayer concept.
I’m a fan of the Powerwash Simulator games, and though many have attempted to fill that same niche, few have come close. Clean Up Earth isn’t far off though, and whilst this demo is a little light on content and rough around the edges, it suggests that the full release should be enjoyable enough.
The concept is simple enough. You make an avatar and are sent off to clean all the rubbish lying around in a variety of locations. There seems to be an attempt at a plot of some kind involving ancient artefacts and people intercepting your communications or somesuch, but much like in all games of this ilk, that’s window dressing at best. So off you go with your magic vacuum to clean up mountains of rubbish.
You’ll initially need to do the tutorial which introduces you to the various attachments you’ll need to utilise. There’s a general purpose one of course, but larger pieces of rubbish require a special attachment, as does buried rubbish and anything that’s radioactive. It’s a nice way of adding something extra to the otherwise one note gameplay.
What is neat is the inclusion of recyclable rubbish that you take to machines which turn them into usable resources. Yes, there’s currency to upgrade your tools, but you’ll also get wood, ropes, and other such items that can build environmental features to allow access to more areas. In the demo, this doesn’t come to much more than climbing a ladder to reach more rubbish, but the multiplayer maps make better use of this.
Now, there’s standard multiplayer where you can get friends to join you in the main stages, of which there are only a couple once you’re through the tutorial. More interesting is what is essentially a “raid boss” of cleaning, where an enormous environment in Nevada is opened up with gargantuan amounts of rubbish and a time limit. The idea is that players will join the server and collectively clean everything over the time limit. It’s a really neat concept that has some legs if there are enough players that engage with this and the rewards for completing are worth the time.
At time of writing, there were only a couple of players that I found also playing in this mode, but I do hope more get involved as I like this idea. The downside is that there’s no voice or text chat built in as the dev team is too small to moderate. This means that extra-large objects that need multiple players to work together on will be difficult to deal with without co-ordination. If groups of friends play together, perhaps this could work. The devs have assured commenters that they’re looking into ways to make this mode more accessible for the full release.
It lacks the out and out satisfaction of Powerwash Simulator’s cleaning, but Clean Up Earth is still a nice enough time in its early state. I’d like the full game to build on what it has and not just rely on doing the same thing over and over, but we’ll find out about that when the full release comes in I suppose!
Clean Up Earth is due for release in 2026, and the demo is available now on Steam.
