Although accidental, Gas Station Simulator has come out at an interesting time. The UK is currently wrapped up in a fuel shortage crisis, with service stations backed up for hours as people queue to either get gas for the week ahead or take part in panic buying. Gas Station Simulator, from developer DRAGO entertainment, is slightly less chaotic than real life, but only by a little.
Gas Station Simulator puts the player in the role of an intrepid entrepreneur who is turning a run down desert gas station into a profitable enterprise. The early game sees the player get occasional telephone calls from a supposedly kindly uncle who is supporting with the property, although not everything is quite as it seems. As such, Gas Station Simulator structurally feels like what would happen if Stardew Valley took a sharp turn into late-stage capitalism.
The fact that there is any kind of comprehensible narrative at all shows that Gas Station Simulator has more depth in its pocket than most of the slew of simulator titles constantly hitting the market. The game has a structure and care to it that is rare in this kind of game, helping it stand out from the likes of Drug Dealer Simulator. Even though Gas Station Simulator's main gameplay loop is centered on repetition - and will no doubt eventually bring back bad memories for anyone who has spent too long in a retail job - there is something extremely satisfying about it.
Part of the reason for Gas Station Simulator's success is that it taps into the simple satisfaction of completing tasks and seeing progression. It's a mechanic that's been seen in everything from World of Warcraft to Cookie Clicker, and the various menial activities of Gas Station Simulator are surprisingly comforting to tick off as the player watches their income slowly trickle in. Meanwhile, the limited customization options see the player able to paint their gas station and choose item placement, so things feel a little more personal.
This gameplay does get repetitive quickly though, and this is a problem that's exacerbated when the player is taken out of the main groove of renovation, gas pumping, and snack selling. A key example of this is when a character called Dennis turns up, an annoying vandal who will knock the quality of your gas station down with stink bombs and graffiti. The player will have to chase him around throwing things at him to get him to leave, and it's not exactly a fun addition to the experience.
Gas Station Simulator also includes some other bits and pieces to try and keep the player entertained. There's a remote control car course for users to take part in, while a music stage in the warehouse allows the player to pick up a guitar and strum away akin to The Last of Us Part 2. These are there as a bit of a distraction should the player get bored of the regular gameplay, although they're unlikely to be of much use to wannabe gas station owners.
Since this is a simulator game, users need to brace themselves for glitches. It's nowhere near as infuriating as the most egregious examples of the genre, and most of the time instead has the janky charm that these games rely on. NPCs will act strangely, vehicles will move bizarrely and struggle with the game's physics (particularly the delivery truck), and there is something wonderful about the main character being able to casually chuck extremely heavy objects to the horizon with no strain whatsoever.
That said, not all of its technical issues are quite as endearing. Gas Station Simulator isn't particularly stable, and does have some issues with crashing, although thankfully the player isn't likely to lose too much progress. The more challenging part of this problem is that the title has rather long load times, so booting the game up again is somewhat tiresome.
Overall, Gas Station Simulator is vastly better than a lot of the simulator games that are available on Steam. It's a charming and occasionally buggy experience, but one that allows the player to find a little bit of peace in a daily grind.
Gas Station Simulator is out now for PC. Screen Rant was provided with a PC download code for the purposes of this review.