I’ve either played or seen others play a handful of business management simulator games—Supermarket Simulator, Waterpark Simulator, TCG Card Shop Simulator just to name a few. This genre can be a lot of fun and easy to lose track of time in, but admittedly, I find that enjoyment rather fleeting. The gameplay mechanics and concepts might differ from game to game, but most tend to feel like a recycled (pun intended) version of one another. I found writing this review to be difficult because most things I could mention are straightforward with not much to dive into.
However, Recycling Center Simulator does have some gems that I enjoy. It is a business management simulator taking place in, you guessed it, a recycling center. Developed by Balas Games and published by PlayWay S.A., it released back on October 2nd, 2024. As the owner of a new recycling center, you are responsible for making sure all operations run smoothly. To do this, you must collect and sort through recyclable materials, recycle those materials into other products, sell those products through contracts and of course, order your NPC workers to do the work for you. So, grab onto those pallet jacks as we discuss Recycling Center Simulator!
The Story & First Steps: A Dumpster Dive Into Gameplay
Typically, I start my reviews talking about the story or lore. However, like most simulator games, there’s really no story here. You are an owner of a recycling center and you must make money. Done. There are some questions I have that could involve a story, but I don’t think they will be getting answered.
Why are so many businesses in this town shutting down and seemingly abandoned? Why do some of the locations have storage crates with massive gold bars in them? What’s with the slight monopoly of who owns these shutting down businesses? Why is our recycling center outside and not in a building, as I would imagine most are? Why are we sleeping in a small shipping container above our office in our outside recycling center? How come there’s seemingly no non-recyclable materials that are just garbage? With the lack of dialogue or lore pieces, these questions will never get answered.
Story aside, the game drops you immediately into a tutorial. Your first steps will include building your first machine, negotiating your first scrap deal and going to the location to pick up the left behind scraps. Everything so far is pretty simple. The machines can be picked up and moved with ease. Negotiating a scrap deal lets you bargain for better deals (or for better sales in contracts which is later). I particularly enjoyed picking up the scrap, filling my trash bags and then making trick shots from a distance into the back of the truck.
Following this was the first of many, what I would call, minigames which is sorting the trash you just picked up. After starting the sorting machine, the items will flow down a conveyor belt. You must sort them into the correct bins. Each type of recyclable material is color coded, such as gray for metal or green for glass, but the bins will light up as you pick up the pieces. You can also perform a combo while sorting, which will give you bonus scrap.
After you are done sorting, you can then grab the sorted waste boxes below and feed them into the correct machines—which are also color coded. You can then start the actual recycling process which will give you products, such as pressed papers or sawdust. These will need to be placed in the storage area in order to be sold first, which might require a pallet and the pallet jack. This part was also fun, but I’ll talk more about this later.
After this, the tutorial walks you through some computer elements, such as the marketplace and contracts. These are the main two ways to earn profit in this game. The marketplace is for selling smaller quantities, good for a quick buck if needed. Contracts require more products, but will pay a lot more and build your reputation level if delivered on time. You can also buy new machines, equipment such as a lockpick or crowbar, expand your factory’s size, take out a bank loan and of course, hire workers to do the work for you. The tutorial shortly ends after hiring your first worker, informing you to go to sleep to refresh the contracts and scrap deals. You will then be on your own to build your recycling center as you best see fit!
The Gameplay: A Simulator with Minigames
Personally, I think the best aspect of Recycling Center Simulator are the minigames. Sorting the scraps into bins is mindless entertainment that has a slight “challenge” in getting combos or scraps building up on the belt. Lock-picking cash registers or doors at scrap sites is a nice addition to earn some extra money or scraps. Even maneuvering the pallet jack feels like a small minigame on its own because of the slight change in controls. None of these are super challenging or take up much time. However, it is the little things like this that make Recycling Center Simulator feel unique from other business management simulators. It’s the small additions like this that entertain me and bring me joy.
Unfortunately, beyond that, the gameplay is rather mundane. Gather scrap, recycle scrap, sell scrap, repeat, day after day. You set the goals yourself—either personally or through contracts. Sure, as you raise your reputation level, new gameplay elements are unlocked for you. However, none of the ones I’ve experienced ever felt all that game-changing. Unlocking better machines did allow me to create new products and make better profits, but the core elements were still the same. Expanding my factory allowed for a lot more machines, more conveyor belt placements and more storage, but it was really just more or less the same as before—only bigger.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the game lacks a real wow factor. Sure, being the owner of a recycling center probably isn’t the most exciting profession. However, I shouldn’t have the most fun in playing the short minigames and creating lives and backstories for my NPC workers. (The two workers in the picture below were identical twin brothers, Roch and Bradley Anderson, who had a quarrel over who could sort trash faster.)
I want to quickly mention that the controls in this game are pretty straight forward. None of the mechanics or processes felt overly complicated and made perfect sense. Simulator games rarely complicate things, and this one sticks to that formula.
The Graphics & Audio: Could be Better, Could be Worse
The graphics in this game are fine. From what I’ve seen, simulator games never have the best graphics but none of them are ever so bad its hard to look at. Though I can’t say I’ve ever seen recycling machines, they all looked pretty realistic to me. Workers look kind of dead and lifeless, but that’s part of the simulator charm. I really appreciated the color coordination for the different recyclable types as it made the game 10x easier. Same could be said for the way scrap would glow at a location, making picking it up a breeze. I also really enjoyed the detail of the recycling bins filling up under the sorting machine. It’s a really nice touch that gives this simulator a great touch of realism—even though no matter how full a box got, there never seemed to be any overfilling or spilling.
The sounds in the game all feel super realistic. The wheels on the pallet jack sounded like actual wheels. The different noises that played when you picked up different types of recyclable materials felt fitting. The machines were super loud, vibrated my headphones, and despite my headache, all sounded true to real life.
If anything, it is the background ambience that doesn’t work. There is no actual music. Instead, two generic noises, birds for morning, crickets for night, play on a very short loop. The game does allow you to lower the ambient sounds to get rid of them, but I’m still a tad bit disappointed it isn’t something better. The title screen plays a rather catchy song. Why can’t the actual game itself?
Overall, the graphics and audio are just okay. Though there are some great touches in both, they tend to once again, feel the same as any other simulator.
The Wishes: Potential to Recycle the Game
In this section, I’m just going to include a few paragraphs on my personal wishes that might improve the game. I wasn’t entirely sure where to put these in the above sections, so I will make them as individual paragraphs here. I won’t mention things I can not see happening at all, such as adding a whole story to the game, and will try to stick with things that could. Obviously, I’m not an expert by any means. These are just my own opinions.
To start with, I think at some point in the day, the workers should all go home. The clock stops at 21:00 (9:00 PM). Everything is dark, flashlight is out and yet all my workers are still standing around. Though I appreciate their staunch loyalty to me and my business, it does not feel realistic at all.
Though I enjoy the minigames, there isn’t any incentive to try and get better at them. You can let the sorting machine’s conveyor belt fill up with scrap with no detriment to the sorting process. It would be nice if there was a slight uptick in challenge. Scrap could fall to the ground, causing the player or worker to pause, pick it up and try again, wasting just a few extra minutes in the day. Failed lockpicking could break the lock. The crates could sometimes be empty.
I think there could also be an uptick in other aspects to increase the realism. The endless supply of pallets could instead require you to order more after using so many, with the potential of reusing them as they tend to disappear after completing a contract. The recycling boxes could also follow this same concept, as they just appear after the sorting process is finished. Maybe simply adding some just plain un-recyclable garbage would ring more true to reality. Adding smaller mechanics like this would add to the realism, something that simulator games tend to strive for.
Finally, and probably most importantly, why is there no multiplayer? This is coming from me—someone who always prefers playing single player. The best moments in simulator games tend to be ones shared when you’re goofing around with your friends. Being the owner of this recycling center is a lonely experience, surrounded by the lifeless NPC workers. Perhaps all our business needs is a friend to panic as they sort through the endless supply of scrap we feed into the machine or be the target for our full trash bag trick shots.
The Conclusion: Simulators, A Dime a Dozen
I’m not really sure what Balas Games has in store for Recycling Center Simulator, if anything. The last major update was in March of 2025, with no roadmap of future updates in sight. I suppose it is very possible that they have moved on to new projects and will not be returning with updates anytime soon. If this is the end, then Recycling Center Simulator is just that—a business management simulator that’s like any of the others. Despite the few positive elements, I never felt that wow factor, something that made me think “hey…this one is better.” Maybe I’m just biased. Simulator games were never my cup of tea.
However, I don’t want this review to seem like a critique on the simulator game genre as a whole. They can be a lot of fun with the right elements and the right people to play with! If you’re an avid fan of simulators, then this game certainly keeps up with the rest of them! If you’re like me though, the entertainment is fleeting and might only last a weekend at best. Even if you do manage to reach a point where everything is automated by workers, with upgraded machines churning out profits and robots flying all over the place, I might still wonder if the time spent was really worth it in the end.
Thank you for reading and please remember to recycle!
