BrainWash: Zombie Cleanup Preview: South African Solo Developer Combines Power-Washing Satisfaction With 1950s Zombie Slapstick

The zombie outbreak is almost over. Your job, working for a decontamination company called Raincoat Industries, is to suit up and go finish it — then clean up every trace of the mess that’s left behind. Solo South African developer Haz Games has revealed BrainWash: Zombie Cleanup, pairing cleaning-simulation satisfaction with zombie-survival action in a 1950s setting, targeting Q2 2027.

Shoot First, Then Mop

The job runs in two distinct phases. First, weapon in hand, clear out whatever zombie stragglers are still moving through the site. Every zombie downed becomes part of the mess you’ll personally have to deal with next — the game’s specific structural joke is that combat and cleanup aren’t separate systems; they’re cause and effect.

Once the site is clear, weapons go down, and mops and pressure washers come out: wiping blood off floors, collecting debris, and gathering body parts to return the location to its pre-outbreak condition. The developer has added a specific unsettling wrinkle to raise tension during this phase — some of what needs cleaning up “might not be entirely dead yet.”

“You Shoot, I’ll Mop”: Co-op Role Division

Completing a job earns pay, which funds better cleaning tools and equipment for tackling larger, messier sites. Beyond solo play, the game supports online co-op specifically built around role division: one player hunts zombies while the other cleans the site in real time, splitting the two-phase loop between partners rather than requiring each player to do both.

Developer Duncan cites Crime Scene Cleaner and Call of Duty‘s Zombies mode as direct inspirations. International outlet GameSpew described the concept as “PowerWash Simulator meets World War Z,” expressing interest in the originality of the combination.

The 1950s Black Comedy Register

The game presents bright, colorful first-person 3D visuals with dark humor and gore underneath — Steam’s mature content notice specifically covers violence and bloodshed against zombies, dismemberment and corpse depiction, and black comedy involving death and violence. Coverage from GameSpew also flagged a specific concern about how zombie character exposure was depicted in the footage shown, which the developer has said will be addressed during development — worth noting plainly as an open item rather than a settled design choice.

System requirements are substantial for an indie title: minimum specs call for Windows 10/11, an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 8GB, with 35GB storage required. Recommended specs step up to an i7-9700K or Ryzen 7 3700X with an RTX 2070 or RX 6700 XT.

The Solo Developer Behind It

Haz Games is a one-person studio based in Johannesburg, South Africa, operating under the stated motto of building “a game the developer wants to play.” BrainWash: Zombie Cleanup is the studio’s debut project, targeting a Q2 2027 full release with a free Steam demo planned by January 2027 to let players evaluate the concept ahead of launch. Eighteen languages, including Korean, are planned for interface and subtitles, with full voice acting planned specifically for English.

Who This Is For

Strong fit for: cleaning simulation fans who want zombie combat layered on top rather than kept separate; co-op groups who want a genuine role-divided loop (one shoots, one cleans) rather than identical shared tasks; players who enjoy dark comedy paired with satisfying, methodical simulation mechanics; fans of PowerWash Simulator-adjacent genre combinations looking for something new.

Cautious fit for: players sensitive to the mature content Steam discloses (gore, dismemberment, corpse handling, black comedy about death); anyone who wants the flagged zombie-depiction concern resolved before following further; players who need a release date firmer than “Q2 2027 target.”

Less ideal for: players who dislike gore or zombie horror content regardless of comedic framing; anyone seeking a serious horror tone rather than black comedy; solo players who specifically want the co-op role-split as the primary experience (still playable solo, but the split is the highlighted hook).

The Takeaway

BrainWash: Zombie Cleanup is a South African solo developer’s bet that the specific satisfaction of PowerWash Simulator-style cleaning and the specific chaos of zombie combat reinforce rather than undercut each other — kill the stragglers, then spend just as much careful attention undoing the mess you made. Eighteen languages including Korean, a co-op structure built around genuine role division, and a January 2027 demo target give players a concrete timeline to evaluate whether Raincoat Industries’ least glamorous job description is actually fun in practice.

The outbreak is almost over. The mop is waiting right next to the shotgun. And somewhere in the wreckage, something the job description didn’t quite promise might still be moving.

Free demo targeted by January 2027. Full release targeted for Q2 2027.

Information regarding ‘BrainWash: Zombie Cleanup’