Sunken Engine Early Access – Cozy Horror Works

I’ve been scraping barnacles off fishing boats while shadowy figures watch me from the fog, and well, it’s a bit more fun than I ever would have expected. Sunken Engine sounds completely absurd when you try explaining it. “It’s PowerWash Simulator but Lovecraft” is sort of true, but doesn’t really capture it either. In short, your dad dies under weird circumstances, you inherit his shipyard on this island called Blackreef, and now you’re stuck managing customer satisfaction ratings while also trying to not lose your mind. Literally.

Hats off to Two Nomads Studio as they somehow made this combo feel natural instead of gimmicky. The meditative ship repair stuff doesn’t fight with the creeping cosmic horro; they actually make each other better. Yeah, this is Early Access and yeah, it needs more content, but I’m way more interested in where this is going than I expected to be. Truth be told, this might actually turn into something special if they stick the landing.

The Daily Grind

So ships show up via a fax machine notice—yes, an actual fax machine in 2025—and you’re tasked with fixing up whatever’s broken on the ship or cleaning it up. Early ships are easy. Scrub some grime, pick up trash, scrape barnacles until your mouse hand hurts. But once you start leveling up and buying new licenses, things get complicated fast. Now you’re patching wooden planks, rewiring radios that crackle with static, replacing lightbulbs in engine rooms where you can barely stand up straight.

I can’t stress enough how satisfying this all feels. Taking a completely trashed hull covered in who-knows-what and making it seaworthy again hits different than I expected, doubling down on the aforementioned PowerWash Simulator vibes. You get a scanner tool that shows what needs work, but it doesn’t baby you. I spent way too long, often crawling around cargo holds looking for one last pile of oysters I swore I’d already cleaned, only to find it wedged behind some crates. Of course.

Between jobs you’ve got your own shop to run as well. Sell stuff you find on wrecks, fish you catch, oysters you shuck for pearls. I named my shipyard “Cthulhu’s Bed” and painted everything this aggressive orange color that probably violates maritime safety regulations. The customization options are limited but they’re there, and it makes the place feel like yours instead of just a backdrop.

Oh, and there’s fishing. Which… well, it exists. I originally had an interest in Sunken Engine because of its fishing, as I’m a sucker for a good fishing game. But I keep forgetting about it because it feels so tacked on right now. More on that later.

Things Can Get Weird

So about that Lovecraftian horror bit. While you’re working, stuff starts happening. Footsteps when nobody’s around. Knocking on your door but there’s nobody there when you check. Then it ramps up—you’ll hear breathing right behind you, catch these dark figures standing on your dock just watching, experience moments that made me actually stop working and look around my real room to make sure I was okay.

They borrowed the sanity system straight from Dredge and I’m not mad about it. Supernatural stuff drains your mental state, and when you’re running low, everything gets harder. Your tools stop working right, the screen gets darker and distorted, those shadow creatures pay way more attention to you. To fix it you smoke your pipe (which I did constantly) or head to the pub for drinks and some basic gambling minigames.

But—and this is a big problem—managing sanity is way too easy right now. Just puff your pipe every few minutes and you’re fine. I chain-smoked through entire repair jobs without any consequences. Which kills the tension completely. The atmosphere is incredible, the sound design makes my skin crawl, but mechanically it’s got no teeth. The developers say they’re working on this and I really hope they make it actually dangerous because right now it’s more of a mild inconvenience than a threat.

When the horror does land though? It really lands. There are specific things that happen at night that I’m not spoiling, but they got under my skin in ways I haven’t felt since… actually I’m not sure when. The sound design carries a lot of this—creaking wood, distant fog horns, the way all the background noise just drops away right before something’s about to happen. It’s effective.

The Chaos of Corruption

Okay real talk time. This game has problems.

The lockpicking minigame is terrible. Every single time I had to pick a lock I wanted to quit. The feedback is nonexistent. You’re just wiggling controls around hoping something happens and you’re never sure if you’re doing it wrong or if the game’s not reading your inputs.

Rust removal feels like nothing. You wave a scraper around and rust disappears with zero fanfare. Compare that to PowerWash Simulator where every spray feels tactile and satisfying, and you can see what Sunken Engine is missing. It’s just not there.

And fishing. Man, fishing in this game might as well not exist. There’s barely any sound, the mechanics feel floaty, and I genuinely forgot it was an option for like four hours. You’re on an island surrounded by creepy ocean water and fishing feels like an afterthought. That’s a problem.

Bugs are here too. Not game-breakers, but annoying ones. Oyster piles clipping into walls so you can’t finish ships properly. Trash floating in midair. Items getting stuck in geometry. Two Nomads Studio has been actively patching stuff based on feedback—they already fixed the tool wheel which apparently sucked at launch—so I expect these to get cleaned up. But you’re gonna encounter jank.

A Mountain of Madness Worth of Potential

Content. That’s the main gap right now. After maybe 10 hours you’ve seen most of what’s in the current build. Ship variety is okay but could be way better. The horror beats start repeating, while the mystery about your dad and the island is compelling, Chapter 1 just ends and leaves you hanging.

Two Nomads Studio seems pretty engaged with their community though, which is promising. They’re in the Steam forums answering people, they’ve already pushed patches, and their roadmap has some ambitious stuff on it. They’re adding a historically significant Turkish ship called the Gülcemal in January with its own story and mechanics, so basically a side quest. Their roadmap mentions underwater exploration, dynamic weather, a town to explore, more ship types. There’s a lot coming it would seem, and hopefully it gets in there soon.

Whether they actually pull all that off remains to be seen. Small studios promise big things in Early Access all the time. But what they’ve built so far is solid enough that I’m willing to wait and see.

Worth Your Sanity?

If you played Dredge and thought “I wish I could spend more time actually fixing boats instead of just catching fish,” this is for you. If you find games like Viscera Cleanup Detail or PowerWash Simulator relaxing, Sunken Engine adds just enough story and atmosphere to keep things interesting without overwhelming the core loop.

But this sits in a weird spot between cozy and horror that won’t work for everyone. Looking for legit Lovecraftian terror? You’ll probably find it too mild. Want pure relaxation vibes? The horror stuff might annoy you. You need to be cool with the game living in that middle space.

And this is very much Early Access. If you need a complete, polished experience, bookmark this and come back in six months. What’s here is good, but it’s definitely still growing.

The Tentacley Truth

I find that Sunken Engine has real atmosphere and a loop I actually enjoy, and way more polish than most Early Access launches. Does it need more content? Absolutely. Does the sanity system need work? For sure. Are some mechanics half-baked? Yeah.

When you’re standing on a fog-covered dock at midnight searching a creaking ship for one last repair, and you hear footsteps behind you when nobody should be there, you’ll actually feel something. Most horror games just throw jump scares at you until you’re numb. Most simulators tend to make you zone out completely. Sunken Engine makes the mundane work itself feel hauntedly engaging at times and that’s legitimately impressive for the genre.

At the current price it is absolutely worth it if the concept sounds even remotely interesting or you are a fan of these types of games. You’ll get a solid 10 hours with more coming, you’re supporting a small team that clearly cares about their weird project, and you might be getting in early on something that becomes really good.

I’m keeping this on my hard drive to see where it goes. If Two Nomads Studio can add more content and fix the rough edges without losing what makes this work, they might have something genuinely unique on their hands.