Unreal Engine 5.5 Demo Reveals Cyberpunk Future

An innovative new tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has been unveiled, allowing players to embark on an immersive walkthrough of a futuristic cyberpunk city. This project, crafted by the talented artist Sciontidesign, draws its inspiration from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the visually captivating Blade Runner franchise, and the immersive world of Cyberpunk 2077. The demo was demonstrated on high-end hardware, utilizing the power of an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM (6000MHz).

This technical demonstration stands out as it exclusively uses dynamic lighting, showcasing the remarkable capabilities of Nanite with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, enhanced by Screen Space Reflections. Notably, the demo does not employ advanced features such as Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting. This choice underscores what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve even without its most sophisticated tools.

While the rain effect in the demo may come across as slightly artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is executed with impressive detail, adding significant depth to the urban environment. However, the experience is marred by 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 built on this engine often face performance challenges when implemented in real-world scenarios.