Skip to main content

House Flipper 2 is the relaxing gaming finale 2023 needed

When the first House Flipper launched in 2018, it didn’t get the kindest critical reception. Reviews at the time knocked the house fixing simulation for its repetitive cleaning gameplay that turned chores into, well, chores. Playing its newly released sequel, House Flipper 2, I have to wonder if developer Empyrean was too far ahead of its time.

Games like House Flipper have become an unexpected phenomenon in the few short years between releases. That’s thanks in no small part to PowerWash Simulator, a surprise hit that only tasked players with hosing down very dirty surfaces. Maybe it was just because it launched between a world-altering pandemic and a hectic election, but many seemed to find some much-needed relaxation in some digital cleaning.

Recommended Videos

The world may not have been entirely ready for House Flipper in 2018, but it’s sure ready for House Flipper 2 in 2023.

The joy of cleaning

Like its predecessor, House Flipper 2 tasks players with fixing up abandoned businesses and filthy homes. Each room comes with a checklist of renovation objectives, from simply cleaning up stains to setting it up with some fresh furniture. The included story mode starts small, tasking me with cleaning up a small house that was infiltrated by a muddy raccoon. That eventually balloons in scale when I buy full houses, renovate them top to bottom, and flip them for a profit.

House Flipper 2 hinges on the same satisfying gameplay loop that made me fall in love with PowerWash Simulator just a few years ago. I get to turn disgusting spaces back into sparkling homes like I’m a fairy Godmother granting Cinderella a wish. That’s accomplished through some simple minigames. In each mission, I have access to a radial menu of tools for the job. When I pick a scrubber, I watch as I magically wipe away paint stains and squeegee cloudy windows. I can paint walls, retile floors, and even sell junky furniture on the fly with my handy flipper tool. Those tasks are repetitive, sure, but that creates a Zen gameplay loop that’s easy to chill out to. It’s like ASMR.

A player paints a wall blue in House Flipper 2.
Frozen District

None of that is terribly new for the sequel, but House Flipper 2 does make some strides in weaving in narrative. Each house I fix now has its own distinct story that I can glean as I fix up the space. A personal favorite mission has me fixing up an old woman’s attic because she wants to create a room for her visiting grandson. As I follow her instructions, I begin unpacking toy train sets and animal wallpaper she’s picked out for him. It’s an endearing mission that plays with the fact that every living space has its own story to tell.

Players are encouraged to build their own stories, too. Freeform house renovation allows for some freedom as players rip out old furniture, repaper walls to their liking, and decorate to their heart’s content. Sandbox mode brings that even further, letting players build houses on empty land plots entirely from scratch. It’s a surprisingly robust tool that’s easy to use — take notes, Animal Crossing. While some may find story mode repetitive after a while, I imagine Sandbox is where many will find the freedom to express themselves.

A player builds a house in House Flipper 2's sandbox mode.
Frozen District

For myself, I’m perfectly happy sticking to the more guided side of the experience. That includes completing furniture assembly minigames, which have me building tables and lamps with step-by-step, Ikea-like instructions. Completing those quickly and efficiently gives me a discount on those items when renovating homes, creating a fun little progression hook that breaks up some of the repetition.

Most of all, though, I just love diving into new spaces and uncovering their stories under layers of filth. I piece together what happened in the aftermath of a rock concert when I follow a trail of paint-soaked footprints from the garage inside the house. In another home, I fix a shoddy bathroom DIY project gone awry by cleaning uneven stencil patterns off the tiled walls. They’re often funny but charming household mishaps that bring something human to the mechanical series. House Flipper 2 gives us a chance to laugh at our own accidents before granting us the power to clean them up.

House Flipper 2 launches on December 14 for PC.

Giovanni Colantonio
As Digital Trends' Senior Gaming Editor, Giovanni Colantonio oversees all things video games at Digital Trends. As a veteran…
WWE 2K25 brings unexpectedly big changes to the wrestling sim
Roman Reigns stands inside a ring in WWE 2K25.

When I reviewed WWE 2K24 last year, I proclaimed that the series had reached the top of the mountain. The series officially completed its comeback arc thanks to tighter wrestling, tons of great modes, and an enormous roster of superstars. It was a major achievement for 2K Games, but one that left the series facing an existential question: Where do you go next once you’ve reached the top?

I’m starting to get a feel for that answer after playing a few hours of WWE 2K25. In many ways, this year’s simulator looks to maintain the status quo by lightly tweaking existing modes like MyGM while adding subtle tweaks to its core fighting foundation. There’s much more to it than meets the eye though, from its new open-world mode to the introduction of intergender wrestling. While I didn’t get to try every new feature, the bits I did get hands-on with felt improved enough to keep this year’s edition from feeling stale.

Read more
This Steam hack has saved me a ton of money on PC games
A person running Steam on the M4 MacBook Pro. Rocket League is up on the screen

I have a massive Steam library, and like most PC gamers I know, I'm always looking to add to it. Will I actually play the games? Maybe. Will I complete all of them? Certainly not. But I'm caught in a negative feedback loop of picking up new games constantly for pennies on the dollar, and Steam is feeding my addiction more than ever before.

How? With Steam bundles. Steam bundles aren't anything new, but I've seen a stark uptick in them over the last several months. They mostly revolve around similarly styled indie titles, offering a small discount of around 10% if you buy two or three games in bulk. That's not why I've taken advantage of Steam bundles so often over the past several months, though.
The hack

Read more
This RPG turns my favorite part of Stardew Valley into an entire game
A blond boy casts a fishing line into an ocean filled with monstrous fish. A boy with red hair and a girl with cat ears stand next to him.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good video game must be in want of a fishing minigame. The time-honored side activity has been featured in everything from Final Fantasy XV to Hello Kitty: Island Adventure as a brief reprieve from the main story. The trouble is that whenever a fishing minigame pops up I find myself neglecting everything else, even saving the world, in favor of casting a line. That is, unless the fishing minigame sucks.

Indie RPG Sea Fantasy is here to solve that problem. Developed by METASLA, Sea Fantasy takes the fishing minigame and turns it into the main event. Gone are turn-based battles, random encounters, and multi-colored mages. There is still an appropriately nonsense story about saving the world from it’s imminent destruction, but this time you’ll be doing it through the power of fishing. Don’t ask too many questions as to how that works. While Sea Fantasy’s charming pixel-graphics pay homage to classic RPGs, the mechanical core of the game draws inspiration from an unexpected source: Stardew Valley.

Read more