Unreal Engine 5.5 Demo Showcases Futuristic Cyberpunk City

A groundbreaking tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has just been unveiled, offering an enthralling journey through a futuristic cyberpunk city. Crafted by the talented artist Sciontidesign, this project takes cues from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the visually rich Blade Runner franchise, and the expansive world of Cyberpunk 2077. The demo was demonstrated on top-tier hardware, equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000MHz.

This technical showcase is driven exclusively by dynamic lighting, effectively demonstrating the prowess of Nanite combined with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, alongside Screen Space Reflections. Remarkably, it eschews advanced features like Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting, spotlighting what Unreal Engine 5 can accomplish even without its most advanced tools.

While the rain effect may come across as slightly artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is executed with striking detail, enhancing the depth of the urban landscape. However, the experience is marred by frequent invisible walls, which interrupt the sense of immersion. Although Unreal Engine 5 tech demos consistently push the boundaries of visual excellence, games developed on this engine often face performance challenges when translated into real-world applications.