Hardware Store Simulator Review

Published 09.07.2025

Author: Asuraya

If you are interested in running your own hardware shop and having some fun, either with friends or solo, you might enjoy Hardware Store Simulator, you can sell tools, help customers, and build your own store. This new game was released in Early Access on April 18, 2025 and developed by Stellar Fusion Studios and published by PlayWay S.A. Fans of simulator games might already know the publisher from titles like House Flipper, Crime Scene Simulator, or the new and popular Wrap House Simulator, but does that mean this game is actually good? Let’s talk about it.

At first, I didn’t expect much from Hardware Store Simulator, don’t get me wrong I love simulators, but shop simulators didn’t sound interesting at all, it sounded boring, and I thought it would just be another basic game, but the game actually surprised me. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, even though the graphics aren’t super realistic, they have a clean, colorful style that matches the game’s fun atmosphere and usually, I’m not a fan of graphics like that, but in this case, it didn’t bother me at all, some of the NPCs even looked kind of funny.

You start with a small shop, literally small, just one shelf and a counter with a cash register, the controls are pretty simple, you buy everything from a tablet and wait for the truck to arrive, when it does, you open the truck, and inside there's a box with the items you ordered, you take the box and place the items on the shelf and set the prize, sounds simple, right? And it really is, that's basically all you do at the beginning, after you finish it's time to open your shop and until you level it up, you have to do everything by yourself especially if you’re playing solo like I am and here things start to get a little weird...... A lot of people come inside of your shop to buy a HUGE amount of the same item, one person even bought 14 screwdrivers, isn't that kind of insane? And here's the real question… like... why? For what?! Mr. NPC, are you okay? Do you need some help? At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone walked in asking for rope, duct tape, and a ski mask...

The biggest issue is that you have to wait until level 10 to hire a cashier, so for the first couple of hours, you’ll mostly be working customer service packing products and giving change, which gets pretty boring after a while, so i think it would be much better to play with a friend here, but if you're a solo player like me, you might have to suffer a bit. Luckily, things get much better after u hire a cashier, you slowly start to take care of you shop, making it bigger and unlocking new products or furniture, there is a lot of items, you have to pay rent, light bills, and you can even hit the casino after work, so it’s not really that small of a game in the end.

Let’s talk about the technical side, the recommended requirements for the game include an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB, which feels way too high for a game that looks like this and I wouldn’t say it’s well optimized either, the graphics are simple, not something you would expect to need that much power for, I tried running it on a mid-range system, and while it was mostly smooth, my PC didn’t seem happy, my fans went full speed right away.

In the end, Hardware Store Simulator isn’t perfect, but I actually had some fun, even if I got bored sometimes too, so would i recommend the game? Yes and No. Yes, if you’re into this type of game, simple and not much complicated and have the patience to get through the early grind, unless you're playing with friends, which can make it way funnier. No, if you’re looking for something super polished, with better graphics, smoother performance, or deeper gameplay, some parts feel unfinished, and it can get a bit repetitive, so if that bothers you, this might not be the game for you.