PowerWash Simulator is one of Square Enix’s latest and most unusual success stories. The fact the company known for JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest was willing to publish one of the trillions of “simulators” out on Steam was amusing enough, but it becoming a massive hit, possibly one of the best games in the genre, was even more impressive. Given the game’s massive success, it was a matter of time before Square decided to double down on some crossover content to keep the game appealing for longer periods of time. This is why the Midgar Special Pack isn’t the biggest surprise in the world. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the hell out of it.

The core gameplay remains intact. PowerWash Simulator is the perfect “chill out” game, where there’s no risks, no stakes, just a huge pile of dirty crap to clean up at your own leisure. Clean dirty spots, earn cash, and buy better equipment to clean even bigger spots with ease. The perfect kind of game to forget about everything else around you; the perfect kind of game to pay little attention to while you zone out. The Midgar Special Pack is all about the crossover appeal and the fan service.

At first glance, the Midgar Special Pack doesn’t look very impressive. It contains five missions set in various locales from Final Fantasy VII, namely using assets and the overall art style from the 2020 remake. The thing is, these missions are quite lengthy. Sure, cleaning up Cloud’s motorcycle doesn’t take a lot of effort, but once bigger environments are unlocked, such as the Seventh Heaven bar, you might take more than an hour to clean up the utterly disgusting mess you’re given to deal with.

However, to be fair, that’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s cleaning up Final Fantasy VII props. In a way, I can’t help but feel like the fan service wasn’t as spot-on as it could (and should) have been. Sadly, no Final Fantasy VII music to accompany you during your epic cleaning task, or even some additional sound effects. Hell, even a victory fanfare would have been perfect in this case. What you see is what you get: clean up stuff and get the occasional text blurb from a FFVII character explaining you what you already know: Shinra folk talking about how great Shinra is, Tifa telling you the opposite.

With that being said, this is not bad DLC. Far from it. This is the perfect kind of content I’d want from a PowerWash Simulator crossover expansion. The Midgar Special Pack uses the base game’s inexplicably appealing gameplay loop as a foundation for players to immerse themselves into some extra Final Fantasy VII content. It’s lengthy enough, giving fans of both franchises more of what they love, be it some healthy doses of fan service or just more horrendously dirty machinery to clean up.

 

Final Verdict: 8.0

PowerWash Simulator: Midgar Special Pack is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of PowerWash Simulator: Midgar Special Pack was provided by the publisher.