Ducking by the pool – Placid Plastic Duck Sim is out now.

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Summer is upon us and there’s nothing better than relaxing by the pool, except here in England, as soon as it’s warm enough to have the pool out, it’s too hot to breath so we sit indoors next to a fan instead, thankfully while inside, next to a fan and a small radiator (game console) we can now experience the relaxed atmosphere of our own private pool, filled with ducks… placid plastic ducks.

I first saw Placid Plastic Duck Simulator on PC last summer, it’s as simple as it sounds, you simulate watching plastic ducks floating around a pool, and, well that’s about it.
But what must have started as some sort of inside joke, gained traction fast as content creators were happily spending hours and hours chatting to their viewers, while watching dozens of ducks fall into a virtual pool.
Finding out a Xbox release wasn’t imminent, I stopped tracking the ducks quite so closely, but here we are in the summer of 2023, and they’re back again.

For only seven hundred and forty nine, of your fine English pence (£7.49 / $9.99), you’ll get Placid Plastic Duck Simulator for Xbox (One and Series X/S consoles) which includes over a hundred ducks in glorious 4K resolution with 60+ FPS as well as various expansions, alternate pools and duck packs which have been released over the last year.

There’s no real gameplay mechanic, except being able to move to set locations (hot-spots), zoom in and out and central your view on a specific duck, but you’ll be able to watch lovingly as a new duck is added to your pool at set intervals, can you collect them all, will you fit 100 ducks in the small pool and more importantly why would you ever turn this off, surely you want to see what rare and wonderful duck styles appear in your pool, especially when they’re all so well detailed?

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator might not please everyone, but I didn’t even try emailing to ask for review code, I was on the Xbox store buying it within seconds, so if you’re looking for a relaxed, fulfilling experience with plenty of character, you can’t go wrong with a plastic duck.

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator is out now via the Xbox store.