Underground Garage is a car mechanic simulator fused with open-world street racing and a crime-driven story set in the illegal racing scene. You run a hidden workshop, repairing and tuning high-performance cars for dangerous street races while navigating shady clients, criminals, and the police. In 2026, it is in Early Access on PC, with console versions planned, and it already offers a surprisingly deep mix of mechanical realism, customization, and racing challenges if you are into cars and tinkering.
What Underground Garage is about
At its core, Underground Garage is about living the life of a mechanic in the underbelly of the automotive world rather than just running a clean, legal shop. You work in a dimly lit, secret garage, taking contracts from racers and shady figures who need their cars fixed, tuned, or rebuilt for high-risk, high-reward street races.
You will:
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Inspect cars, diagnose problems, and replace or repair individual parts, from engine components to suspension and body panels.
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Buy wrecks and used parts from junkyards, strip them down, and restore them into competitive race cars.
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Slowly expand and upgrade your workshop with new tools and workstations as you progress through the story.
A narrative thread runs through the game: after a gang tied to illegal racing and smuggling causes the garage owner to disappear, you and your colleague Deb must rebuild the business and uncover what really happened. While the story is not a cinematic blockbuster, it gives context to your jobs, clients, and the sense that every car you touch is connected to a larger criminal ecosystem.
Gameplay: from wrenching to racing
The gameplay splits into two main pillars: deep mechanical work in the garage and open-world driving and racing in the city. This dual structure is where Underground Garage positions itself as “Car Mechanic Simulator meets Need for Speed.”
In the garage, you get full control over:
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Part-by-part disassembly and assembly using layered views of the car (body, suspension, drivetrain, engine).
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Diagnostics on the lift to identify worn or broken parts and check durability, wear, and damage values.
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Specialized stations like ECU hacking, battery charging, and tire mounting/dismounting that add complexity beyond simple part swapping.
Once your build is ready, you can take cars into the open-world city to test and race them. The city includes multiple districts, including the overhauled Golden Sands area with wide three-lane boulevards that turn into improvised race tracks at night. There are currently 29 tracks in total, including nine AI-compatible routes where you can race against computer-controlled opponents.
Core driving content includes:
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Time Attack runs where you push your car’s limits against the clock.
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Illegal street races against AI drivers across different parts of the city.
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Story missions and procedurally generated jobs tied to tuning, fixing, and painting cars.
Because the game simulates realistic engine and body damage, crashes in races matter: you will see the consequences back in the garage when you have to repair what you just broke. That loop of “build – race – break – rebuild better” is the heart of the experience.
Customization, realism, and technical depth
Where Underground Garage really leans in is realism and customization. Every car is built from dozens of individual parts, meaning you are rarely just pressing a button to “repair” – you are swapping out components, tinkering with setups, and fine-tuning performance.
Key systems that stand out:
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Extensive customization: performance parts, tires, engines (including new V10 and boxer-style H6 engines in recent updates), and detailed paint, stickers, and decals.[
Realistic damage: impacts affect both body and engine, influencing handling and performance until you repair them.
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New workstations and drivetrains: ECU hacking missions, battery charging, and tire mounting plus front-wheel drive support expand the tuning sandbox.
On the technical side, the game offers advanced graphics options including modern scaling and upscaling solutions like DLSS, FSR, or TSR, as well as frame generation on supported hardware. This is important because Underground Garage runs on Unreal Engine 5 and pushes decent visual fidelity for its cars and nighttime city environments.
Control-wise, the Early Access build supports mouse and keyboard and controllers, with sensitivity sliders and axis inversion, which makes it accessible whether you play more as a sim fan or a casual racer. Minimum PC specs are relatively modest (e.g., GTX 1650 / RX 5500-level GPU and 8 GB RAM), so mid-range rigs built for modern AA titles should run it without major issues.
Early Access status and content roadmap
As of early 2026, Underground Garage is available in Early Access on PC via Steam, with full console releases for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S planned later. The PC Early Access version launched in November 2024 and has received multiple updates, including a major revamp that reportedly introduced around 1,500 changes to cars, engines, tracks, and systems.
That big update added:
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New engines (two V10s and a boxer H6) and cars.
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Reworked backend systems for vehicles and engines with better modding potential.
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New AI-compatible tracks and more racing-focused content, bringing the track count to 29.
The developers also highlight future plans like:
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More story content and challenges in the open world.
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Expanded race types and eventually multiplayer modes so you can share builds and races with friends.
User reception so far sits in the “mostly positive” range on PC, with around 70–75% positive reviews and a small but active player base, which suggests a niche but engaged community. However, the Early Access tag means you should expect some rough edges, balancing tweaks, and occasional bugs, especially around AI, physics quirks, or mission scripting.
Is Underground Garage worth buying in 2026?
Whether Underground Garage is worth buying in 2026 depends heavily on what you want out of a racing or mechanic game. If you are primarily a casual arcade racer player who just wants instant races with minimal tuning, this might feel too slow and technical. But for players who enjoy deep mechanical systems and the fantasy of turning a junkyard wreck into a street monster, it is already a strong option.
Buy now (or strongly consider it) if:
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You love Car Mechanic Simulator-style games but wish you could actually race the cars you build in an open world.
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You enjoy methodical part-by-part car work, realistic damage, and learning how tuning choices affect handling and speed.
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You are okay with Early Access, meaning you accept bugs, incomplete features, and evolving balance in exchange for being part of the game’s growth.
Wait or wishlist if:
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You care more about polished, cinematic story campaigns or big-budget visuals than mechanical depth.
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You want fully realized multiplayer and competitive racing features right now rather than sometime after Early Access.
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You dislike Early Access and would rather buy once the game is “feature complete” on PC and consoles.
Price-wise, Underground Garage is positioned in the mid-range sim tier on PC, with regular discounts tracked by price sites and platforms. Given the amount of time you can sink into building, testing, and racing cars, the value proposition is good if you actually engage with the tuning systems instead of treating it as a simple racer.
If you are running a rig that can handle current-gen sims and you are into garage tinkering plus street racing, Underground Garage is already worth buying in Early Access or at least grabbing on sale in 2026. For everyone else, the safest route is to try the available demo on Steam, see how you like the pacing and depth, then either jump in now or wait for the full release and console versions.
