Unreal Engine 5.5 Demo Unveils Cyberpunk Future

An exciting new tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has been unveiled, providing players with an immersive journey through a futuristic cyberpunk city. This project, crafted by the talented artist Sciontidesign, draws inspiration from iconic sources such as the Samaritan UE3 demo, the Blade Runner franchise, and the visually rich world of Cyberpunk 2077. The demo was showcased on cutting-edge hardware, utilizing an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6000MHz.

This technical demonstration stands out by relying exclusively on dynamic lighting, effectively showcasing the prowess of Unreal Engine 5's Nanite technology with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, enhanced by Screen Space Reflections. Remarkably, it does not employ advanced features such as Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting, which underscores the impressive capabilities of UE5 even when not utilizing its most advanced tools.

While the rain effect in the demo may come across as somewhat artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is meticulously detailed, adding a rich layer of depth to the urban environment. However, the experience is marred by the presence of frequent invisible walls, which can detract from the overall immersion. Although Unreal Engine 5 tech demos consistently deliver visually stunning experiences, it's worth noting that games developed with this engine often face performance challenges when applied in real-world scenarios.