House Flipper Remastered Review: Pick up a hammer and get cozy

Though whether or not you need this or last-gen's base game is up to you.

I was definitely late to the party with House Flipper but discovered it midway through the COVID pandemic and Melbourne’s myriad lockdowns. In it, I found comfort, solace, and even joy in virtually repairing homes and handing ’em over to virtual nuclear families. After obtaining 1,000 Gamerscore in its base offering, I moved onto its Garden DLC before being able to get out and about in the real world once again.

For those even later to the party, House Flipper and 10 pieces of DLC (yes, including Garden) have been upgraded and repackaged as House Flipper Remastered on current-gen consoles following an earlier release on PC. It comes with the usual quality of life improvements we’ve come to expect — enhanced lighting, redesigned UI, and upgraded textures — alongside new features like full voice acting, new story content, and a top-down view for extreme renovators.

Ultimately, House Flipper Remastered gains some new jank that replaces existing jank found in the original, and I’m okay with that. It feels like going back home.

House Flipper is comprised of story-based missions that will teach you its basics — cleaning, painting, tiling, demolition, construction — before opening up the larger housing market to you. In that section, you’re literally flipping houses, buying up fixer-uppers and turning them into someone’s dream home.

I consider House Flipper my ultimate cosy game. Things are very cruisy, especially in its beginnings — clean up some trash, take a mop to the kitchen walls and floors, and mount a radiator so the home’s resident doesn’t get cold in the winter. House Flipper’s UI — in original or updated form — is easy enough to navigate so you never feel unsure of what to do, or how to do it.

Remastered itself offers up DLC missions too, but they’re hidden long after a series of base game story missions — that’s fitting though, as you’ll have the basics down by then and will naturally just breeze into bigger, better, and slightly more challenging things. Even with your skills at their weakest, there’s no rush or anxiety in applying paint to one small section of a wall, then moving over and repeating, and repeating again. You can let your mind wander, or just relax; having a cheery score that reminds this old gay of something from Bel Ami’s Frisky Summer series doesn’t hurt either.

Remastered does look and sound better than the original — I redownloaded the PS4 version of House Flipper to compare — but admittedly not by much. Sadly, one thing that didn’t change at all were loading times; they’re as long as PS5 as they are on the PS4 original.

While some bugs, like your camera movement wilding swinging up in the middle of a task, are present in both versions, I’ve found a couple new ones that only exist in the new version. For instance, moving from mopping to cleaning a window will just set you up in front of the window without your tool more often than not; backing out and then back in fixes that in no time flat, but it’s all rather annoying nonetheless.

I tried to explain how House Flipper played, and how it made me feel, to my niece and nephew this week. They looked at me as if I were insane, and I understand why. For some, this game will feel like a menial task simulator; to others, just a way to unwind. There’s a real joy in setting up a home and furnishing it so it’s just right — like doing the same with a home in The Sims without the need to manage the actual people living inside of it.

Either I’ve convinced you or not. From here, the choice is up to you — I’d say that some could get buy on the original House Flipper base game, currently priced at $24.99 USD, to scratch the itch I’ve defined above. If you adore it, perhaps ditch the base game’s DLC and move onto Remastered proper to save yourself some cash. The whole Remastered package is priced at $49.99 USD, though it does offer discounts to original owners as follows:

• PlayStation Store: $39.99 USD to those who own House Flipper.
• Xbox Store: Tiered discounts as follows:
  • 10% off for players who have played House Flipper via Xbox Game Pass.
  • 20% off for current owners of the original House Flipper.
  • 30% off for owners of the original House Flipper who also own at least one of the following DLCs: Garden, Pets, Luxury, Farm, or Dine Out.

Even better, House Flipper is still on Xbox Game Pass, so try it before you buy it (or buy it twice?) over on Xbox or PC.

Play it, or play it again — but relax and have fun doing it.

House Flipper Remastered is currently available on Windows PC via Steam, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5. The original House Flipper is currently available on Windows PC, Mac, Xbox One, PS4, Switch, Android, and iOS devices; it’s also part of Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

House Flipper Remastered was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.