If a Sunken Engine walkthrough sends you straight to a fax machine, translate that instruction before doing anything else. The official 0.5 update removed the old fax workflow and replaced it with Radiofax, a rotating choice of jobs. The story checkpoints are still useful, but the interface, inventory, economy, and tutorial around them have changed. This route therefore follows the durable objective chain from the crossing to the castle and treats the current Journal and Radiofax prompts as the authority whenever an older label differs.
The promise here is deliberately limited: Prologue, the Necronomicon handoff, The Book’s Call 1-1, the doctor’s office in 1-2, and the castle descent in 1-3. It is not a full Early Access story walkthrough. Later updates added Gülcemal, underwater progression, more cursed locations, spellcasting, and further acts, so the old “After the Engine is endless free mode” description is no longer a safe endpoint.
Separate story gates from ordinary ship work
Most early objectives advance only after two different conditions are satisfied. First, the shipyard must be capable of taking the required job: enough player progress, the relevant tonnage or repair permission, and a free dock. Second, the story interaction must be completed: read a letter, visit a named location, use the Necronomicon on a concealed object, or exhaust a conversation. Repeating random jobs solves the first condition, but it cannot replace the second.
| What you see | What it usually means | Next check |
|---|---|---|
| No story vessel is available | The dock is occupied or the related job has not appeared in Radiofax | Finish or send back the current ship, then review the next Radiofax choices. |
| The objective remains after a repair | A captain, letter, or room interaction is still pending | Open the work list and Journal; do not submit until both the contract and story prompt are clear. |
| A red eye or occult mark does not react | The wrong tool is equipped | Use the physical scraper on eye growths and the Necronomicon on cursed symbols or concealed passages. |
| A map destination is present but its scene will not advance | The visit is too early, at the wrong time, or missing a previous document | Read every objective-marked letter and obey the current time-of-day prompt. |
| The repair list appears finished but the customer remains | A hidden task or completion dialogue is outstanding | Rescan the ship, inspect closed spaces, then speak to the captain before leaving. |
Prologue: turn the inherited yard into a licensed business
Speak to Horace McBride at the crossing and take the route to Jeremiah’s Shipyard. Once inside, read the tutorial note before trying to clear the room. The tool wheel and prompts have been revised more than once during Early Access, so learn the installed bindings and discard any conflicting launch-era key sequence. The functional distinction matters more than the button: the bin removes loose trash, the cleaning tool clears surface dirt, and the scraping tool recovers attached oysters, starfish, and similar finds.
Use the shipyard scan or special-vision prompt when a work item is hard to see. Loose refuse must be disposed of through the yard’s waste process, while saleable finds should be kept out of that stream. This is the first place new players accidentally destroy value: an oyster is not ordinary garbage, and a dirty patch is not removed by the scraper. Check the on-screen work list after each pass instead of sweeping every surface with one tool.
Radiofax now supplies jobs. It begins with a limited choice and rejects the alternatives when you select one, so read the task summary before committing. Only one ship can occupy the working dock. On each tutorial contract, complete the visible work, rescan for the last item, and speak to the named customer or captain to close the job. A finished deck without the handover dialogue is not a finished contract.
Recognize the Prologue’s actual finish line
The early contracts teach cleaning, scraping, disposal, and job handover while raising the business toward its operating gate. Continue until the Shipyard Operating License is awarded and the locked part of the yard becomes relevant. Sleep or advance time only when the objective points you there; random day cycling is not a substitute for the license.
Ronald Sawyer’s arrival at the previously locked door is the transition signal. Open it, collect the Father’s Last Letter, and follow the scene involving Jeremiah Marvin. Interact with him until the book is handed over. The Necronomicon is a story item, not a market purchase, so a missing book means the Prologue conversation chain is incomplete. Once it is in hand, The Book’s Call begins.
For a build-oriented order of licenses and repairs after this handoff, use the Sunken Engine shipyard progression guide. This walkthrough mentions business upgrades only when they gate the next story scene.
The Book’s Call 1-1: build access, then follow the cursed ship
Chapter 1-1 is not advanced by a single quest marker. It mixes ordinary work with a capability check. Take suitable Radiofax jobs, complete every task instead of submitting partial ships, and spend only on the next visible access requirement. Deck expansion and tonnage permissions open larger vessels; task permissions cover electrical work, communications, metal maintenance, and locked compartments. Exact prices and level thresholds have been rebalanced since the launch guides, so read the current bank and Renovation Table rather than budgeting around an old number.
The Necronomicon has two early diagnostic uses. Hold it on cursed markings that resist physical tools, and carry it into spaces whose entrance or object is hidden from normal view. Eye growths remain a separate physical cleanup task. If the book does nothing to an eye, that is not a failed spell; change to the scraper. If a colored symbol remains after scraping, switch back to the book.
Prepare for the story vessel without overbuying
A larger contract can combine patched flooring, light replacement, bent metal, a radio, and a locked door. Inspect the task list before buying a permit or renovation. A capability that is not on the next job does not move the story faster. Conversely, accepting a job with an unlicensed task can leave the dock occupied while you travel to solve the permission gap. When the choice screen exposes the task mix, prefer the job that matches what the bank and Renovation Table already show as available.
The current inventory no longer works like the launch version: basic work materials were moved to an unlimited carry model and market purchases go directly into the bag. Do not search the old shelving route for every nail or bulb. Use the current inventory and work-list icons to determine what still needs to be acquired.
Clear the cursed ship in layers
- Finish ordinary repair and cleaning tasks first so the remaining list exposes the occult blockers.
- Scrape the eye growths. If sanity pressure rises, use the current recovery system before entering the hidden section.
- Raise the Necronomicon at cursed markings and hold the interaction until the effect completes.
- Inside the operator area, compare each visible symbol with the shadowed pattern behind it. Light the candles at the corners belonging to the matching symbols; random candles make it harder to read which comparison succeeded.
- Remove the remaining cursed marks, then approach the concealed entrance while holding the book.
- Follow the hidden route, read the note near the body, and use the book on the floating cursed object at the end of the path.
- Return to the yard, open the available door, and exhaust the conversation with the Sunken. The new objective, not merely leaving the vessel, confirms 1-1 is complete.
If the hidden entrance never appears, confirm that the candles produced a completed symbol state and that no cursed mark remains on the work list. If the ship is clean but the scene does not continue, revisit the operator room instead of taking another ordinary contract.
Chapter 1-2: enter the doctor’s office at the time the objective requests
The next story task is an infiltration, but it still expects the shipyard progression needed for lockpicking. Buy the current locksmith permission at the bank and carry a lockpick from the market before traveling. The old guides give launch-era costs and a fixed level; those numbers were later rebalanced. The reliable gate is the live license row: if it is locked, continue contracts; if it is purchasable, acquire it before the night visit.
When testing a conventional lock, rotate the pick to a candidate angle and apply only enough turning pressure to read the response. A shake or blocked rotation is a rejection signal. Release, move the angle, and test again. Holding full pressure at a bad angle spends the tool without teaching you anything. Once the cylinder turns through its full range, enter rather than continuing to probe.
Travel to the doctor’s location only after the Journal calls for the night infiltration. Open the exterior lock, enter, and use the Necronomicon to reveal what ordinary inspection misses. Closing the entrance can raise the character’s stress or madness state, so stabilize it before searching the side room. Read every marked letter in the office. The chapter transition depends on the documents; simply unlocking the building is not enough.
The new objective should direct you to unlock the castle and descend. If it does not, sweep the doctor’s office once more with the book active, check both accessible rooms, and reread any highlighted document. Taking more repair jobs cannot compensate for an unread story item here.
Chapter 1-3: use the letters as a route through the castle
Begin from the completed doctor’s-office investigation, then travel through Blackreef to the castle location shown by the current map. Enter the castle and read the letter on the lower table. Go upstairs for the next letter, then return to ground level. These documents are route flags: skipping the upper one can make the underground interaction look broken even when the door is in view.
Use the underground door and descend into the basement. Follow the stairs to the experiment area, read the first document on the floor, and continue to the second document near the apparatus. Stay in the room after reading it. The scene with the bodies in the large vessel and the attack from behind is the transition; leaving early or assuming the first letter was the endpoint can prevent you from seeing the handoff.
The success signal is a new act or chapter objective after the experiment. Do not use a launch guide’s displayed player level as proof of story completion: level, skill points, and story flags are related but not interchangeable. If the basement is accessible and the scene does not fire, verify the lower and upper castle letters plus both basement documents in that order.
Do not force the old After the Engine endpoint onto the current build
The October 2025 Chapter 2-1 reference described “After the Engine” as an unfinished free-work chapter. Official updates later added Gülcemal, underwater story content, additional cursed places, and spellcasting; the developer also rewrote the Act 2-1 header in July 2026. That old endpoint is useful only as historical context. After the castle scene, follow the act title and objective shown by the installed build.
If the new act offers only ordinary work for a while, use that time to expand repair capability rather than searching for a nonexistent legacy trigger. If it presents Gülcemal, underwater, ritual, or spell objectives, those belong to newer content and are outside this early route. The Sunken Engine achievement roadmap separately explains how those systems affect the current 30-goal cleanup.
Sources and Early Access boundary
Game identity and live status were checked against the official Sunken Engine Steam listing and official Steam announcements from Two Nomads Studio. The game is Steam AppID 3604780, developed by Two Nomads Studio and published by PlayWay S.A. It entered Early Access on October 16, 2025. At research time on August 16, 2026, Steam still labelled it Early Access; an August 10 announcement began the countdown to full release but did not make the store build a finished release.
The story checkpoints were cross-checked against readable walkthrough references, while official 2026 updates supplied the current Radiofax, inventory, economy, fishing, repair, and content boundaries. When a current objective, bank row, tutorial, or input prompt differs from an older walkthrough, use the current client. No precise price, level gate, or post-castle endpoint in this article is intended as permanent across Early Access updates.