Category: DLC

PowerWash Simulator 2’s Star Wars Pack, Cleaning the Millennium Falcon One Panel at a Time

DLC Review · Purchased July 25, 2026 · $13.49 CAD via PSN

PowerWash Simulator 2 Star Wars Pack key art featuring the Millennium Falcon
Photo via PlayStation Store

The Setup

Given how much money I’ve thrown at both the original PowerWash Simulator’s Star Wars content and pretty much every other piece of Star Wars merchandise that’s crossed my path over the years, buying this the week it launched was never really in question. The pitch alone, hosing carbon scoring and grime off the Millennium Falcon, is exactly the kind of licensed crossover this franchise seems built for.

Living With It

Cleaning the Falcon is every bit as satisfying as the concept promises. The ship’s iconic silhouette and greebled panel detail give the cleaning tools a lot to chew on, and there’s a genuine sense of scale working your way from the cockpit down through the boarding ramp and out to the mandibles. The pack also includes a couple of other iconic locations and vehicles beyond just the Falcon, giving it more variety than a pure one-ship gimmick would have had.

Where this pack pulls ahead of the original game’s Star Wars content is the sequel’s added verticality tools; the cherry picker in particular makes reaching the Falcon’s upper hull sections feel like an actual task rather than an awkward camera-angle fight. It’s not doing anything the format hasn’t done before structurally, but the fidelity on the ship models themselves is a clear step up, and as someone who’s now cleaned this specific ship in two separate games, I can say the sequel’s version is the better-looking one by a wide margin.

What I Liked

  • The Millennium Falcon’s panel detail and greebling give the cleaning mechanics real texture
  • Sequel’s verticality tools make reaching the ship’s upper sections much better than in the original game’s Star Wars content
  • More than one location included, not just a single-ship gimmick

What I Didn’t

  • Structurally, it’s the same format as every other crossover pack at this point
  • Licensed packs like this keep landing at a similar price point regardless of content depth

The Verdict

Rating: 4.5/5

The best-looking Star Wars content this series has put out yet, and an easy pickup for anyone who liked the original’s crossover packs.

Where to Buy

Disney Dreamlight Valley’s Honeyglow Woods, a Solid New Realm to Get Lost In

DLC Review · Purchased July 15, 2026 · $16.99 CAD via PSN

Disney Dreamlight Valley Honeyglow Woods key art
Photo credit: disneydreamlightvalley.com

The Setup

Dreamlight Valley has been a reliable well of relaxing, low-stakes content for me ever since I picked up Wishblossom Ranch, so I jumped on the Honeyglow Woods Adventure Pack the week it launched in July without waiting to see reviews first. At this point I trust Gameloft’s paid content packs more than I trust most full-price releases to actually deliver what they promise.

Living With It

The new realm itself is a genuinely lovely piece of environment design, all soft amber lighting filtering through dense tree cover, with a warmer, cozier color palette than a lot of the Valley’s other biomes. It leans into a woodland-at-dusk mood that feels distinct from the areas that came before it, rather than just being a new coat of paint on the same exploration loop. New characters and story content are woven through it at a decent clip, and the pack does a good job of giving you enough new material to chew through in a single dedicated weekend without feeling padded.

Where it starts to feel familiar is the actual moment-to-moment gameplay: it’s still the same gathering, crafting, and light farming loop Dreamlight Valley has always run on, and Honeyglow Woods doesn’t really try to reinvent that formula so much as give it a new backdrop and a new story to dress it in. For a series I keep coming back to specifically because that formula works, that’s not really a complaint, but if you were hoping for a mechanical shake-up, this isn’t it.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely distinct, cozy visual identity for the new realm
  • Good pacing on new story and character content for the price
  • Reliable, comfortable gameplay loop that I keep coming back for

What I Didn’t

  • No real mechanical changes to the core gathering/crafting loop
  • Starting to feel a bit formulaic across this many Adventure Packs

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Another solid, cozy expansion for a series that knows exactly what it’s good at, even if it’s not pushing the format forward.

Where to Buy

Still Wakes the Deep’s Siren’s Rest Expansion, a Worthy Return to the Beira D

DLC Review · Purchased June 20, 2026 · $13.99 CAD via PSN

Still Wakes the Deep: Siren's Rest key art
Photo via Steam

The Setup

Still Wakes the Deep was one of my favorite horror games from a couple years back, a tense, claustrophobic story set on a North Sea oil rig, so when The Chinese Room announced a story expansion in Siren’s Rest last summer I made a mental note to circle back to it once I had a free weekend. That finally happened in June, about a year after the DLC actually released.

Living With It

Siren’s Rest is set roughly a decade after the base game’s events, and returning to the Beira D with that much narrative distance gives the whole thing a different flavor than the original: less about surviving an active crisis and more about investigating the wreckage of one, both literally and emotionally. The rig itself is in a genuinely different state of decay compared to the base game, and the sound design team clearly had fun finding new ways to make familiar corridors feel unfamiliar again.

It’s shorter than the base campaign, which makes sense for a story-focused add-on at this price point, but it doesn’t feel rushed. The investigative framing gives you more room to piece together what happened than the original game’s more linear survival-horror pacing did, and as someone who wanted more time in this specific setting, it scratched exactly the itch I was hoping for. If you didn’t love the base game’s slow-burn pacing, this won’t change your mind, but it’s a genuinely worthwhile return trip for anyone who did.

What I Liked

  • Investigative framing gives a fresh angle on a familiar setting
  • Strong sound design continues to carry the atmosphere
  • Meaningful time jump gives the rig a genuinely different feel from the base game

What I Didn’t

  • Noticeably shorter than the base campaign
  • Same slow-burn pacing as the original, which won’t win over anyone who didn’t like that the first time

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A worthwhile, atmospheric return to one of the better horror settings in recent memory, even if it’s over quicker than I wanted.

Where to Buy

PowerWash Simulator 2’s Adventure Time Pack, Scrubbing Down the Land of Ooo

DLC Review · Purchased April 20, 2026 · $10.99 CAD via PSN

PowerWash Simulator 2 Adventure Time Pack key art
Photo via PlayStation Store

The Setup

After spending most of last year buying nearly every crossover pack for the original PowerWash Simulator, I was genuinely relieved when the sequel finally started getting its own special packs this spring. The Adventure Time Pack was the first one out the gate in April, dropping players into the Land of Ooo to hose down locations and vehicles pulled straight from the show.

Living With It

The Adventure Time aesthetic translates surprisingly well to the grime-and-suds format; the show’s candy-colored, slightly off-kilter art style gives the level designers a lot to play with, and the caked-on filth clashing against Ooo’s bright pastel palette is a nice visual gag on its own. The pack carries over the sequel’s added verticality tools nicely, with the abseiling rig getting real use scaling some of the taller, more vertical Ooo architecture in a way the original PowerWash Simulator’s crossover packs never really attempted.

It’s a shorter pack than some of the meatier crossovers from the original game, and the character cosmetics included feel like a smaller offering compared to what some of the bigger licensed packs used to include. But the core cleaning loop is exactly as satisfying as ever, and being one of the first crossover packs for the sequel, it’s a promising sign that PowerWash Simulator 2 is going to get the same steady stream of content that made the original such good value over its lifetime.

What I Liked

  • Adventure Time’s bright, off-kilter art style works surprisingly well against grime
  • Good use of the sequel’s new verticality tools like the abseiling rig
  • Signals a promising ongoing content pipeline for PowerWash Simulator 2

What I Didn’t

  • Shorter than some of the bigger crossover packs from the original game
  • Character cosmetics feel like a smaller offering than past licensed packs

The Verdict

Rating: 3.5/5

A fun, if slightly light, first crossover pack for the sequel. A good sign of things to come rather than a must-own on its own.

Where to Buy

Destiny 2’s Renegades Silver Bundle, Stocking Up for the Star Wars Crossover Era

DLC Review · Purchased March 10, 2026 · $20.99 CAD via Bungie.net Store

Destiny 2 Silver currency artwork
Photo credit: Bungie.net

The Setup

Yes, this is another entry in my ongoing series of “bought Destiny 2’s premium currency instead of anything with actual content in it.” With Renegades, Bungie’s Star Wars-inspired expansion, in full swing, I wanted a stash of Silver ready to go for whatever seasonal cosmetics or Eververse items showed up alongside it, so I grabbed a smaller 1500 Silver bundle with a 200 bonus Silver top-up rather than committing to one of the bigger round-number tiers.

Living With It

There’s genuinely nothing to review here in the traditional sense: it’s a number that goes up in a menu, and then you spend it on ornaments, emotes, or the occasional armor set that catches your eye. What I will say is that Renegades has been a good excuse to actually spend Silver again after a quiet stretch, since the Star Wars-flavored cosmetic sets that came with the expansion are some of the more tempting Eververse offerings Bungie’s put out in a while, and having Silver already banked meant I wasn’t stuck waiting for a sale or a bigger currency purchase to grab one the moment it showed up.

The math on smaller bundles is never quite as favorable as the big ones, and this one’s no exception, but I’d rather buy a slightly worse per-dollar rate on a bundle sized to what I’m actually planning to spend than have a pile of unused Silver sitting around forever, which is exactly the trap the bigger bundles set for me in past years.

What I Liked

  • Sized closer to what I actually planned to spend, less waste than the bigger bundles
  • Renegades’ Star Wars-themed cosmetics made this an easy purchase to justify

What I Didn’t

  • Worse Silver-per-dollar rate than the bigger bundles
  • It’s still just a currency purchase, so there’s not much substance to actually review

The Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Fine for what it is, and a smarter-sized purchase than my past Silver bundles, but still just currency.

Where to Buy

Disney Dreamlight Valley: Wishblossom Ranch Deluxe Edition, Now With Horses

DLC Review · Purchased November 21, 2025 · $71.67 CAD via Xbox.com

Key art for Disney Dreamlight Valley: Wishblossom Ranch Deluxe Edition
Disney Dreamlight Valley: Wishblossom Ranch. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Background

Following last year’s Storybook Vale expansion, Wishblossom Ranch takes Dreamlight Valley’s formula in a horse-focused direction, sending players to the Wishblossom Mountains to restore a neglected ranch affected by a mysterious phenomenon called the Decay, while befriending iconic Disney steeds like Maximus, Khan, and Pegasus alongside characters including Snow White and Tinker Bell. The Deluxe Edition adds 10,000 Moonstones and exclusive items, including Mount Sven from Frozen.

Living With It

This is a bigger swing than last year’s expansion, which mostly extended the existing formula with new realms and character storylines. Building out an entire horse-focused ranch, complete with new companion mechanics for riding and caring for named Disney steeds, gives this expansion a distinct identity of its own rather than feeling like the same core loop with a new coat of paint, which was my main criticism of Storybook Vale.

Mount Sven specifically is a fun, well-realized inclusion for anyone with fondness for Frozen, and the Decay storyline gives the new area a bit more narrative stakes than the average Dreamlight Valley content drop, without straying too far from the game’s fundamentally cozy tone. The Deluxe Edition’s Moonstone allotment is generous enough that it meaningfully offsets the price difference over the standard edition if you were going to spend on cosmetics anyway.

The core loop is still recognizably the same farming, decorating, and friendship-building systems that have defined the game since launch, and whether that’s a positive or a negative at this point depends entirely on how much of that loop you’ve already gotten out of the base game and its prior expansions.

What I Liked

  • Horse and ranch focus gives this expansion a more distinct identity than last year’s
  • Mount Sven and the other Frozen-themed exclusives are a genuine highlight
  • The Decay storyline adds a bit more narrative weight than usual
  • Deluxe Moonstone allotment offsets the price gap if you’d spend on cosmetics anyway

What I Didn’t

  • Core gameplay loop remains fundamentally unchanged from the base game
  • Value depends heavily on how much of the existing formula you’ve already played through

The Value Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A stronger, more distinct expansion than last year’s, thanks largely to the horse-focused hook actually changing up the moment-to-moment gameplay rather than just adding more of the same map to explore.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Plus Essential: The 12-Month Plan I Should Have Bought Last Year

DLC Review · Purchased February 21, 2025 · $106.39 CAD via PSN

PlayStation Plus Essential tier artwork
PlayStation Plus Essential. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

After reviewing last year’s single-month PS Plus Essential top-up and explicitly calling out how much worse the per-month math was compared to the annual plan, I actually followed my own advice this time and bought the full 12-month Essential subscription upfront.

The Review

The service itself is unchanged from last year’s review: online multiplayer access and a rotating monthly selection of free games, delivered exactly as advertised without incident. What’s different is purely the math, and the math is genuinely better here. Paying once for the full year works out to meaningfully less per month than the single-month purchase I made in December, which is the whole reason this review exists as a kind of quiet correction to last year’s entry.

There isn’t much drama to a subscription renewal done correctly. It’s the boring, sensible version of the same purchase, and boring and sensible is exactly what you want from a recurring cost like this.

What I Liked

  • Meaningfully cheaper per month than paying monthly, exactly as expected
  • Same reliable online access and monthly game claims as always
  • A rare case of actually taking my own advice from a previous review

What I Didn’t

  • A larger upfront cost, even though the per-month value is better
  • Locks you in for a full year rather than leaving room to cancel if your habits change

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

If you use PS Plus regularly, this is simply the correct way to buy it. Nothing new to report on the service itself, just a smarter purchase than the one-month top-up from last year’s list.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Plus Essential: 1 Month, The Subscription Top-Up That Taught Me a Lesson

DLC Review · Purchased December 19, 2024 · $13.43 CAD via PSN

PlayStation Plus Essential tier artwork
PlayStation Plus Essential. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Setup

A single month of PlayStation’s entry-level online subscription tier, required for online multiplayer access and monthly free game claims, purchased as a short-term top-up rather than a longer commitment.

The Review

There is genuinely not much to review about a subscription service doing exactly what a subscription service is supposed to do: it granted online access and monthly game claims for the month I paid for, without incident. The real lesson from this purchase is entirely about math rather than the service itself: paying month to month like this works out to meaningfully more per month than committing to PlayStation’s 12-month plan, which is a common subscription trap across basically every service in this category, not unique to PlayStation specifically.

What I Liked

  • Does exactly what it promises, no complaints about the service itself
  • Useful as a genuine short-term top-up if you only need a single month

What I Didn’t

  • Noticeably worse per-month value than committing to a longer subscription term
  • Easy to accidentally overpay if you use PS Plus regularly but keep buying single months out of habit

The Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Only makes sense as a genuine short-term top-up. If you use PS Plus regularly, the 12-month plan is meaningfully cheaper per month than paying monthly the way I did here.

Where to Buy

The Casting of Frank Stone: A Well-Made Detour Into Dead by Daylight’s Universe

DLC Review · Purchased December 21, 2024 · $41.93 CAD via PSN

Key art for The Casting of Frank Stone
The Casting of Frank Stone. Photo: Steam

The Setup

A standalone narrative horror game set within the Dead by Daylight universe, developed by Supermassive Games in the same branching-choice, cinematic style that defines their Dark Pictures Anthology work.

The Review

The Supermassive DNA is unmistakable throughout: strong atmosphere, solid voice acting, and a branching-choice structure that gives individual playthroughs a genuine sense of consequence. As the last purchase of my entire 2024 spreadsheet, it closed the year on a reasonably strong note, atmospherically at least. Where reception, including my own reaction, landed more mixed was on how well the story actually capitalized on its connection to Dead by Daylight’s established lore, several reviewers felt the link to that wider universe was more surface-level connective tissue than a substantive deep dive worth the price of entry for existing Dead by Daylight fans specifically hoping for real lore payoff.

What I Liked

  • Strong atmosphere and voice acting consistent with Supermassive’s other work
  • Branching choices give real weight to individual playthroughs
  • A solid horror narrative on its own terms

What I Didn’t

  • Connection to Dead by Daylight’s lore feels more surface-level than substantive
  • General narrative-horror fans without franchise attachment may want to wait for a discount

The Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Reasonable for horror and Dead by Daylight fans specifically looking for more narrative context on that universe, general narrative-game fans may want to wait for a sale before jumping in.

Where to Buy

Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale, More of a Formula I Still Enjoy

DLC Review · Purchased November 20, 2024 · $71.76 CAD via Xbox.com

Key art for Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale
Disney Dreamlight Valley: The Storybook Vale. Photo: PlayStation Store

The Background

Disney Dreamlight Valley built a loyal audience by blending cozy life-sim mechanics (farming, decorating, friendship building) with actual Disney and Pixar characters and storylines, and The Storybook Vale is a premium expansion pack adding new realms, characters, including Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, and story content on top of that established foundation.

Living With It

This is the priciest DLC purchase in my entire 2024 spreadsheet, and coming in above the $70 mark puts it in a different category than the roughly $12 PowerWash packs and $21 currency bundles that make up most of this section. That price is more defensible than it might first appear, given how much new content the expansion actually adds: new realms to explore and decorate, meaningful character-specific storylines rather than generic filler quests, and enough new systems and content to genuinely extend the life of a game that some players had already worked through the bulk of.

Reviews at launch (and my own time with it) landed on similar ground: this is a well-produced, content-rich expansion that clearly understands what the existing Dreamlight Valley audience wants, more of the same core loop, done well, with new characters and settings to wrap around it. What it is not is a reinvention of the formula, and a small number of reviewers specifically flagged that as a minor disappointment given the price point, wanting the premium expansion to push the format somewhere genuinely new rather than expanding it along the same lines.

For someone already invested in the base game’s rhythm, spending an evening building out a new Rapunzel-themed area of the valley delivered exactly the kind of relaxing, satisfying progression loop that made the base game worth playing regularly in the first place.

What I Liked

  • Genuinely substantial amount of new content, not a thin premium reskin
  • Rapunzel and Flynn Rider’s storylines are well written and true to the source material
  • Extends the life of a game I was already invested in rather than replacing what worked

What I Didn’t

  • The priciest DLC purchase of my entire year, worth going in with clear expectations
  • More of the same established formula rather than a meaningful evolution of it
  • Value is heavily dependent on already being invested in the base game’s core loop

The Value Verdict

Rating: 3/5

Reasonable if you are already invested in Dreamlight Valley as an ongoing game, this delivers real, substantial content. Just know going in that this is a “more of what you already like” purchase rather than a must-have reinvention.

Where to Buy