Six of the best comfy sims for PlayStation 5

I recently gave in and bought a PS5. And I’ve actually found a lot more worth playing on it than I initially believed there to be — although the things I have found to play are perhaps not what one would call the “big names” of the platform. Nope, outside of the excellent Resident Evil 4 remake, I’ve been playing a variety of comfy sims as a means of winding down and enjoying some gameplay that strikes the perfect balance between engagement and relaxation. So I thought I’d share some of my favourites with you now.

PowerWash Simulator

The first of my favourite comfy sims for PlayStation 5 surely needs no introduction, as it is arguably the title that made a lot of people aware of how simulations can be a great means of simply tuning out and relaxing.

For the unfamiliar, PowerWash Simulator, developed by the folks behind the fantastic PSP and Vita shoot ’em ups in the Velocity series, is a game that uses the trappings of a first-person shooter to provide a completely non-violent experience. Your war is not on terrorists, aliens, or zombies, but on simple, humble dirt.

Thankfully, the town of Muckingham has a lot of dirt that needs cleaning up, making it an ideal setting for a fledgling power washing business to set up shop. Take on small jobs such as cleaning up vehicles, or tackle larger-scale projects where you’re cleaning entire buildings or parks.

With the latest updates, you can even hose down Lara Croft’s manor or the Shinra building from Final Fantasy VII Remake — and, pleasingly, the setup for the latter scenario effectively makes PowerWash Simulator canon in the Final Fantasy VII Remake universe.

PowerWash Simulator is available digitally, with a physical version coming in June. The game can be played co-op with friends.

Lawn Mowing Simulator

With a similar vibe to PowerWash Simulator, Lawn Mowing Simulator from Skyhook and Curve Games is another highly enjoyable comfy sim that also sees you cleaning up various messes. This time around, your job is to bring nature under control rather than washing away the filth of human existence — though there’s still an element of that, too, since you’ll need to make sure the lawns you’re tending are free of rubbish before bringing out the mowers.

The majority of your time in Lawn Mowing Simulator will be spent astride a variety of mowing machines, driving around at approximately 5 mph and trying to resist the temptation to cut obscene patterns into the local gentry’s gardens. You can also strim troublesome edges, and as you progress through the game, you can hire additional staff members to take on extra jobs and grow your business empire.

While Lawn Mowing Simulator lacks some of the enjoyable whimsy and humour of PowerWash Simulator, it’s still a thoroughly relaxing comfy sim that is genuinely worth spending some time with.

Lawn Mowing Simulator is available both physically and digitally, with the former coming with codes for two DLC packs included. The latter is also available on PlayStation Plus at the time of writing.

Construction Simulator

Construction Simulator may initially put a few PS5 comfy sim-heads off with its somewhat juddery sub-30fps performance at times, but give the game some time and you’ll quickly find yourself thoroughly enraptured by the variety of tasks on offer.

Unfolding across two beautifully rendered open-world maps set in Germany and the United States, your job is to take over your uncle’s construction company and complete a variety of projects around the two cities. Initially, these are relatively simple tasks such as helping to clean up after a bad storm and resurfacing roads, but as you progress and gain access to a wider variety of heavy machinery, you’ll be able to take on more and more ambitious contracts.

Construction Simulator offers great freedom in how you approach its various challenges, with the ability to both buy and rent construction vehicles, take out bank loans, expand your company and work with various contacts on longer campaigns of related projects. By far the best thing about it, though, is seeing how your hard work actually has a major, noticeable effect on the game world itself — it’s immensely satisfying.

Despite the wide variety of machines on offer, Construction Simulator never overwhelms with overcomplicated controls; it’s accessible yet feels realistic, with a particularly convincing sense of weight to everything you do. And if you get bored, just hop in your sports car or pickup truck and go sightseeing for a bit — the jobs will still be waiting for you when you’re good and ready.

Construction Simulator is available physically and digitally, with the former containing the same content as the digital “Extended Edition”. The game can be played co-op with a friend online.

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers

TV shows about policemen doing boring things on the roads are something of a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was delighted to discover that there are multiple comfy sims devoted to this subgenre of popular light entertainment. Of the variety out there, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is probably the best, offering a substantial open world to patrol either on foot or in your vehicles, and a very in-depth interaction system for dealing with the various aspects of your daily life on the beat.

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is noteworthy for its extremely in-depth difficulty settings, allowing you to customise the experience to your liking. Want to play it straight as a fully law-abiding cop, setting a good example for everyone around you and doing things completely by the book? Hit up the full Simulation mode. Tired of getting dinged for speeding, jaywalking and ignoring red lights? Turn those options off. Or just want to enjoy the game as a more “arcadey” experience? Switch to Casual mode and just enjoy a fairly relaxed approach to your daily patrols with lots of helpful visual cues.

While you’ll start your career doing little more than issuing parking tickets and fining people for littering, the game’s nature as a “spot the little things going on” sort of experience makes it a surprisingly compelling and relaxing experience despite its inherently boring subject matter. And once you earn a few police stars and are entrusted with more elaborate cases, things get much more interesting.

Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is available physically and digitally. The game can be played co-op with a friend.

Fernbus Coach Simulator

If you enjoy open world driving games but wish all the missions that involve annoying things like shooting or escorting people would just go away, then I highly recommend trying your hand at a bus simulator. Fernbus Coach Simulator is a well-regarded title that originated on PC, and which has done a good job in coming over to the console market with a straightforward control scheme. And yes, it plays great with a wheel, too.

In Fernbus Coach Simulator, you drive a coach. The routes you take are entirely up to you, within certain limitations in the main game mode: you have to start your journey from a bus stop you’ve previously discovered on your travels. Your end point is up to you, however, and with a vast (albeit scaled-down) map of Europe’s greatest hits available to explore, there’s potentially limitless hours of comfy driving ahead of you.

While lacking the more elaborate business simulation elements of some other bus simulators, Fernbus Coach Simulator is a comfy sim that allows you to get pretty much straight to the action and just enjoy the sightseeing. Oh, and occasionally endure German people complaining about the Wi-Fi and/or toilet not working, but who cares about them?

Fernbus Coach Simulator is available physically and digitally.

Train Sim World 2/3

I’m listing both here as I’m waiting for my copy of Train Sim World 3 to arrive, and have been playing Train Sim World 2 in the meantime. It’s a thoroughly lovely time — with the caveat that you really need to be into the idea of either travelling on trains or nerding out about trains to enjoy this one. If either of those things are true of you, you will find this a delightfully chilled-out comfy sim; beautifully presented and featuring some wonderfully atmospheric sound in particular. Clickity-clack and all that.

Notorious for its vast amount of completely optional DLC — you don’t buy every accessory for a Hornby train set, do you? — the Train Sim World series strikes an excellent balance between authenticity, accessibility and even some more game-like sensibilities. Featuring a pleasingly straightforward control scheme even for the most complex-looking locomotives, it’s easy to get up and running in Train Sim World.

Where the game really shines is over the long term, though. Each of the game’s included routes features a “Journey” mode that takes you from your first experiences on a particular line up to more complex scenarios featuring unusual conditions to contend with. And outside of that, you can simply run a particular service on the routes’ timetables any time you please. There’s a ton to do just in the base game, and each new route you add via DLC effectively adds a whole new game’s worth of activities to participate in.

Just don’t ever buy those DLC packs at full price; they go on sale quite frequently. Plus it’s worth noting that it’s cheaper to buy a disc copy of Train Sim World 2 (the digital version has been delisted) and add its routes to Train Sim World 3 than it is to just buy Train Sim World 3 and buy Train Sim World 2’s routes separately as DLC.

Train Sim World 3 is available physically and digitally. Train Sim World 2 is available physically.

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