From the minds behind popular simulator games such as the House Flipper series, Contraband Police, and Car Mechanic Simulator 2021, comes developer President Studios’ latest sim, Crime Scene Cleaner. Published by President Studio and PlayWay, this long-anticipated release has dropped on Steam. Boy, was it worth the wait.

In this simulation game with a rich storyline, Crime Scene Cleaner is centred around a man known as Mr. Kovalsky, an underpaid, overworked school janitor sucked into mob life after unsuspectingly stumbling into a murder scene for a paid cleaning job. After doing such a good job of making it look like the murder never happened, you’re hired by Big Jim, the biggest and most powerful mob boss in the city, to clean up his dirty work.

The tutorial level introduces you to the game’s premise and how to use your tools. Use mops, sponges, and a pressure washer to clean up crime scenes filled with blood and bodies and put the furniture back in place. Each tool works differently on different surfaces, for example: mops work best on floors and walls, whereas sponges are better for cleaning furniture, paintings, and rugs.

Each area in each level has tasks that appear on the top left corner of your screen and disappear when you complete them. Finding that last little bit of blood can be tricky, which 9/10 times is just your own footstep you created by not being very tactful running over blood puddles. Technically you can leave the scene without cleaning and just disposing of the bodies, but you won’t progress through the story that way.

Each level also has secret areas to uncover where you can find more collectables or things to steal. The money you earn or steal throughout the levels directly converts to skill points you can use at home to upgrade your tools. You can upgrade your mop to work a bit better on tougher stains or upgrade your detergents to be a bit more potent.

Although the game premise might seem a little grim, it’s super relaxing. Like Power Wash Simulator and House Flipper had a love child whose personality turned out to align a little more with Hannibal Lecter.

The graphics are great and very refined. They’re very detailed with each level having its own environment and (dare I say) charm. Nothing feels half-finished or out of place. The sound design is fantastic.

Hearing footsteps in blood, music from your environment, and your little tape deck, you can immerse yourself in cleaning up all the gore. The little details like detergent caps popping and washing the mop are very realistic and you can also find new tapes throughout the levels to have a bit of a playlist going in your tape deck.

To summarise, I had a great time playing Crime Scene Cleaner. The hype surrounding this game’s release lived up to the expectations, and I can only applaud the developers for releasing another great simulator title. It’s a super relaxing game where you can get into the nitty-gritty of cleaning up a crime scene and stealing as much stuff as you can. I’m excited to finish the game and see where the story leads.

Written by: Emily France