Supermarket Simulator Review Summary

Highly enjoyable management game that improves with updates, but suffers from overpriced broken DLC, frequent crashes, and excessive grind.

Highly enjoyable and fun: Players consistently describe the game as fun, cool, good, and enjoyable, with many praising its core gameplay and value for money.

Good multiplayer functionality: Co-op and multiplayer modes are praised as fun additions that enhance the experience, especially with at least two players.

Great for management game fans: The game is recommended for fans of management games, with simple yet effective mechanics and customization options.

Improved with updates: The game has significantly improved since launch through updates, making it much better and more recommendable over time.

DLC overpriced and broken: Many players report DLCs are overpriced (over 30 euros total), add basic items that should be in the base game, and are buggy. The DLCs feel like cash grabs or cut content, and some cause game-breaking bugs.

Items disappear after saving: Items frequently vanish from shelves, freezers, fridges, and warehouses after saving and reloading. This is a persistent bug that affects inventory management heavily.

Shelves duplicate and break: Shelves and refrigerators duplicate, move, or change type after loading a save, causing items to disappear or overlap. This is a common save corruption bug.

Game becomes too grindy: The gameplay becomes monotonous, tedious, and grindy after 5-10 hours, feeling like a mobile game. It requires excessive waiting or repetitive actions.

Game crashes frequently: The game crashes regularly, sometimes every 1-2 hours, and has too many bugs overall that are not fixed properly.

Supermarket management simulation game: Players describe this as a supermarket management simulation where they stock shelves, hire employees, and manage store operations.

Shelf stocking mechanics: A significant part of the gameplay involves restocking and arranging products on shelves.

Cooperative multiplayer mode available: The game supports cooperative multiplayer, allowing players to play together with friends in managing the store.

Store expansion system: Players can expand their store over time, possibly to multiple stores, with progression mechanics.

Employee restocking system: Workers can be hired to bring products to racks and help with restocking.

Performance degrades over time: Many users report that the game's performance progressively worsens after extended play sessions, with FPS drops, lag, and stuttering becoming more severe after one to two hours, often requiring a restart to restore smooth gameplay.

Severe stuttering and micro-stutters: Players frequently encounter various forms of stuttering, including micro-stutters, constant freezes while moving, and choppy gameplay, even on high-end hardware, which significantly impacts the gaming experience.

Frequent game crashes and freezes: The game exhibits a high frequency of crashes and freezes, including during startup, loading screens, and regular gameplay, with some users experiencing crashes every 1 to 2 hours or constant freezes every couple of minutes, making the game unplayable.

Recent patches have mixed results: While some users note that recent updates fixed specific map stuttering bugs and general lag, others report new freezing issues or crashes after updates or DLC installations, indicating incomplete fixes.

Performance degradation with game progression: As players progress through the game and build larger stores with more customers, performance degrades noticeably, with increased lag and lower FPS, suggesting scalability problems in the game's engine.

Good for management fans: Players who enjoy management and simulation games find this game highly suitable and enjoyable. It is frequently recommended as a deep, cozy management simulator.

Game-breaking bugs present: Several reports indicate serious bugs that make the game unplayable or frustrating. Reviewers warn not to buy until these issues are fixed and the game is more stable.

Not worth full price: Many players feel the game is overpriced at its current or full price point. Suggestions include waiting for a sale or only buying when discounted significantly.

Do not buy DLC: Multiple reviewers advise against purchasing the DLC, citing overpricing and lack of value. Some recommend avoiding the DLC entirely unless it is deeply discounted.

Wait for future fixes: Reviewers suggest waiting for updates or a significant overhaul before considering purchase. The current state is not recommended, but may improve later.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $15.00.

Game completion: 79.0h.

Session length: 3.0h.

Supermarket Simulator hooks players instantly with its immersive and addictive core loop, but the fun quickly deteriorates due to grindy progression, repetitive chores, and technical bugs, making long-term solo play tedious.

Friction: grindy progression with slow money and license unlocks; repetitive tasks (stocking, restocking) that become chores; technical bugs: broken UI, sync issues in multiplayer, invisible items; limited depth and half-baked features (employee AI, lack of variety); performance degradation as store grows (lag, crashes).

Unlock drivers: co-op with friends (roleplay, shared tasks); hiring NPC employees to automate restocking and cashiering; using mods to fix friction or add QoL; future updates that add content and polish.

Casual Relaxer: Plays in short sessions, enjoys organizing shelves and watching the store grow. Often plays with music or podcasts in the background. Motivation: Relaxation and repetitive satisfaction. Stance: sale.

Meticulous Grinder: Plays for long sessions, micromanages stock, prices, and layouts. Uses external tools like Cheat Engine to bypass slow grind. Tracks every number. Motivation: Optimization and completion. Stance: no buy.

Co-op Frustrated: Plays co-op with 1-3 friends, takes turns as cashier or stocker. Often roleplays, but constantly has to reload or restart due to bugs. Motivation: Playing with friends. Stance: deep sale.

Performance is largely negative on most Windows hardware cohorts, with widespread reports of crashes, lag, freezing, and poor optimization. The only positive cohort is dominated by macOS users with 8-11GB VRAM, who report smooth native performance on Apple Silicon.

Windows <8GB VRAM / <16GB RAM: negative. Reports of lag, stuttering, crashes every 10-15 minutes, poor optimization, and low frame rates even at minimum settings.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. All five recommended reviews come from macOS devices (MacBook Air M3, Mac mini M4) reporting flawless native performance; the sole Windows-based negative review cites server lag and bugs.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Mostly negative with reports of customers and workers freezing, crashes losing hours of progress, despite one positive review citing smooth performance.

Steam Deck: This game suffers from critically small UI text, frequent crashes, inconsistent Steam Deck compatibility, and performance issues like battery drain and FPS drops. While a subset of players enjoy it on the Deck, the widespread reports of broken functionality and unreadable text place it firmly in the 'Broken' category.

Linux and Proton: The majority of user feedback indicates that the game runs well on Linux via Proton and on Steam Deck. One isolated complaint about unplayability on the Steam Deck is contradicted by multiple positive reports, and a single save issue is not clearly tied to Proton compatibility. No evidence of required tweaks, anti-cheat blockers, or critical failures was found.

Monetization: The reviews reveal a pattern of aggressive post-launch monetization: the base game costs a fixed price but then the developer releases multiple small DLC packs on the same day, priced as high as $22-26 for what users consider minor additions. Many complain that these DLCs should have been free updates or included in the base game. Additionally, the game has persistent bugs that remain unfixed while new paid DLCs are pushed out, and at least one reviewer mentions the introduction of broken microtransactions. This strategy creates a 'pay to get the full experience' feel, with no free content updates. The overall sentiment is that the community sees this as predatory and greedy.

Mod reliance: The user feedback indicates a community reliance on mods for quality-of-life improvements (faster scanning, larger warehouses, better interaction), but no evidence of game-breaking bugs that make the game unplayable. The game is described as 'playable with minor clunkiness.' Mods are requested for enhancements, not for fixing critical failures.

External guides: Users frequently resort to creating or using external spreadsheets to handle economic data, such as determining selling prices and tracking profits. This indicates a strong dependency on external tools for inventory management and valuation.

Store security breach fix: A security breach is described where attackers could connect to random players' sessions and change store names. A suggested fix involves deleting the NoktaGames folder in AppData to resolve a game not starting after a DLC update.