A groundbreaking tech demo, powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3, has been unveiled, allowing players to explore an immersive walkthrough of a futuristic cyberpunk city. Crafted by the talented artist Sciontidesign, this project takes inspiration from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the visually rich Blade Runner franchise, and the expansive aesthetic of Cyberpunk 2077. The demo was demonstrated on high-end hardware, utilizing an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM operating at 6000MHz.
This technical showcase is a testament to the power of dynamic lighting, highlighting the capabilities of Nanite with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, complemented by Screen Space Reflections. Remarkably, advanced features like Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting were not used, emphasizing what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve even without its most advanced tools.
While the rain effect might seem somewhat artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is exceptionally detailed, adding a realistic touch to the urban environment. However, the demo does encounter frequent invisible walls, which can disrupt the overall immersion. Although Unreal Engine 5 tech demos consistently deliver visually stunning experiences, games developed on this engine often face performance challenges when applied in real-world scenarios.
