Unreal Engine 5 tech demo The Matrix Awakens includes rail shooter and open world parts
Epic Games, in partnership with Warner Bros. released an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo set in the world of The Matrix. The Matrix Awakens should show what the new engine can do and is only available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X.
The Matrix Awakens should not be seen as a full-fledged game, but as an interactive tech demo that should give users a taste of the Unreal Engine 5. The demo starts with a fragment of the first Matrix film, but then copied in the engine. Virtual versions of Keanu Reeves as Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity appear in the tech demo. These cinematic UE5 scenes are interspersed and combined with images from the cinema films.
Later, the tech demo becomes interactive and players take on the role of IO, a character previously featured in Epic videos. As IO, players must blast other cars filled with Agents in the form of a railshooter. Although the explosions are similar, Epic emphasizes that every car crash is calculated in real time by the Chaos physics system, part of UE5.
After the railshooter segment, players can freely roam the city. This city contains more than 260 kilometers of roads, 512 kilometers of sidewalks and 45,073 parked cars. ‘Only’ 38,146 of these cars can be driven by IO. The city also has 1,248 intersections, 27,848 lights, 12,422 manhole covers, seven million instanced assets, each made of millions of polygons, and seven thousand buildings. The city is 16 square kilometers in total.
Epic says The Matrix Awakens was made “with a relatively small team,” without giving a number. Despite the team’s “limited” size, Epic says the employees were able to create the tech demo thanks to the procedural tools within the engine, including SideFX’s Houdini. Because the engine can handle this tool, Epic says that small studios can create large open-world games, introducing rules into Unreal Engine 5 such as how big roads should be, or how tall buildings can be.
In the tech demo, players can also switch certain layers on and off, so that, for example, it is visualized how the Mass AI that regulates traffic works. Another example is that they can switch between day and night to see the dynamic global illumination and reflections system Lumen in action. This part of the engine uses real-time ray tracing to simulate lighting. Also, players can enable a layer that shows the workings of the virtualized geometry system Nanite.
Epic tells Eurogamer that the project, including all assets, will be sent to Unreal Engine 5 users, “to experiment with as they please.” The engine can now be used as Early Access and the full release should appear next year. The Matrix Awakens has only been released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles; nothing is known about a possible PC version.