Steam Gaming: Gas Station Simulator

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Aywren

Gas Station Simulator is a game that I had for a while on my wishlist before I finally picked it up earlier this year. I heard quite a bit of good things about it, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried it out.

The game provides a short and amusing story to set the stage before it sets you up with your own broken-down gas station off the road of Route 66. Being out in the middle of nowhere has its ups and downs – you don’t always get a lot of traffic, but the traffic you do get is grateful for you being there!

So far, I’ve only put about 10 hours into the game and haven’t delved into any of the DLC (I only own a couple of packs). The flow of the game feels pretty good in terms of how things are unlocked and introduced as time goes on. Much of it is based on your station’s level and the amount of money you have to spend on unlocks.

The game starts you off with running a single gas pump. You’re a full-service station, apparently, and pumping the gas is a bit of a mini-game. The closer you get to providing just enough, but not too much, gas, the more likely you get a tip for good service.

Eventually, you clean up the inside of the station, paint the walls, and begin selling things like snacks, drinks, reading material, and the like. Ringing up customers at the counter inside while juggling the customers at the gas pump outside becomes a whole different mini-game.

You have to ensure the station stays clean. You have to take out the piling trash. Make sure the restrooms are also in clean condition. And remember to keep gas and the items you sell in stock.

Then comes the service station side of the game. For some reason, you decide it’s a good idea to start servicing vehicles out of the small garage next to the station. This includes replacing tires, fixing broken mirrors, and buffing out scratches on cars – amongst other things.

As you level and unlock new tiers, more items become available to stock. More services are available at the service station. The game becomes more complex simply due to the growing number of things you need to juggle to keep your customers happy.

And then you do something dumb like install the bus stop. And the Party Bus becomes a thing.

The Party Bus.

I admit that my least liked part of the game is the service station. Keeping it stocked – especially with tires – is expensive, and servicing the cars tends to take so much more time than any other activity in the game.

It’s nice that as you level up, you can start hiring help to take care of one task or another. Sadly, help doesn’t stay on all day and all night – they work in shifts, and the number of hires you can have depends on your level and station development.

Even though I dislike working the service station the most, I’ve only hired on people to take care of the gas pumping and register so far. I am looking forward to leveling up enough to hire on more help, but I really have to spend some time saving up to be able to afford the unlocks, much less paying out another salary.

While I don’t consider Gas Station Simulator a particularly hard game, there were a few times that I came pretty close to having spent most of my earnings just for restocking the store. I became a lot more careful about spending after I ran into a few close calls. There’s a certain amount of slight stress in knowing you’re coming down to the wire with only a couple of tires left in stock and the gas pumps running dry!

I know that there’s all kinds of DLC for this game – everything from running an airstrip to having a gas station on a remote tropical island to having a RV camp. All which sound both fun… and rather exhausting, to be honest. I have more than enough content to keep me going in the base game for now, but maybe one day, after I’ve expanded my gas station on Route 66 as much as I can, I’ll add something new.

I’ll keep you posted!

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