O
nce or twice a decade we get one of my
favourite treats: a new game engine tech
demo. These are not actual games.
They’re better: they’re promises of what
games could be, pure spectacle
showcases for the majesty of a million more polygons
on screen and bumpy tessellated surfaces and lifelike
ray-traced lighting. Tech demos are raw power and
unhinged artistry mashed together, gleefully
disregarding pesky problems like ‘writing’ and ‘design’
that have to go into proper videogames.
Maybe the best of them was 2011’s Unreal Engine 3
Samaritan demo, a three minute slice of gritty sci-fi (still
more evocative today than playing Cyberpunk 2077 in
2021 turned out to be). In 2005 Square Enix created a
tech demo of Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation 3 that
ended up haunting the company for years until it finally
bowed to inevitability and announced the Final Fantasy
VII Remake. Then there was 2020’s ridiculously pretty
Unreal Engine 5 unveiling, which was all the more
impressive because it included developers talking about
how it all works. Using UE5’s new “virtualised
geometry” technology “artists wouldn’t have to be
concerned over polycounts, draw calls, or memory”,
Epic technical director of graphics Brian Karis said in
the demo. “They could directly use film-quality assets
and bring them into the engine.”UNREAL WORLD
Usually part of the bargain with a tech demo is that deep
down we know it’s all smoke and mirrors, but Epic said
that 2020’s Unreal Engine 5 reveal ran in real time on a
PlayStation 5. Could a playable game actually live up to
that promise? December’s The Matrix Awakens demo
felt like a pointed answer to that question: even though
it’s only available on consoles, it’s a genuinely mind-
blowing representation of how realistic UE5 games can
look, blending together UE5’s new virtualised geometry,
global illumination lighting, and Epic’s uncanny
MetaHuman creation tool.
We’re going to see all of these come into play in the
next generation of big-budget games. But when, exactly?
That’s hard to say: game developers are hesitant to pin
down release dates too far out during the best of times,
and the pandemic has caused some major delays.
There’s a chance that the first new Unreal Engine 5
game we play will be Redfall, Arkane’s co-op shooter. It’s
supposedly still due in the summer of 2022, with an
open world set in the town of Redfall, Massachusetts,
that’s inconveniently overrun by vampires. Or
conveniently, I guess, since a vampire horde gives usUnreal
legacy
The very first
version of Epic’s
Unreal Engine was
developed for 1998
FPS Unreal, which
spawned
multiplayer spin-off
Unreal Tournament.
2006’s Unreal
Engine 3 debuted
with Gears of War
and became the
most successful
iteration of the
engine. UE3 was still
being used (and
heavily customised)
in high profile
games as recently
as 2019’s Mortal
Kombat 11.UNREAL TOUR
What to expect from games running on UNREAL ENGINE 5’s ‘next-gen’ technology
How closely will
Redfall resemble its
2021 reveal trailer?PCG INVESTIGATESSpecial
Report