An innovative new tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has been released, offering players a captivating walkthrough of a futuristic cyberpunk city. This project, developed by artist Sciontidesign, draws inspiration from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the atmospheric Blade Runner franchise, and the visually striking Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic. The demo was showcased running on high-end hardware, featuring an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000MHz.
This technical demonstration relies entirely on dynamic lighting, showcasing the capabilities of Nanite with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion combined with Screen Space Reflections. Notably, it does not utilize advanced features such as Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting. This approach highlights what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve even without its most sophisticated tools, demonstrating the engine's robust foundational capabilities.
While the rain effect may appear somewhat artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is impressively detailed, adding depth and realism to the urban environment. However, the demo experiences frequent invisible walls, which can detract from the overall immersion. Although Unreal Engine 5 tech demos consistently deliver visually stunning experiences, games built on the engine often face performance challenges when implemented in real-world scenarios.
