The playable tech demo shows in an impressive way how real NextGen titles could look – a big step towards what is generally understood by (cinematically) photorealistic. Last December, The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience caused quite a stir. Thanks to a YouTuber, The Matrix Awakens tech demo is now finally playable on PC without any knowledge of the Unreal Engine 5. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Tips.That said, there are still some work-in-progress areas that can't be explored in the demo. The city feels very much alive too, with the overlapping chatter of its people clashing with all sorts of different music and advertisements piping from nearby storefronts - you know, just like the real Tokyo.

Even at high settings I noticed virtually zero stuttering while I ran and jumped around, took in the familiar sights, and even explored some stairways and hidden paths you wouldn't think you'd be able to explore. Having played the demo for a little while, I was impressed by how smoothly it ran on my RTX 3060 laptop. But as far as I'm aware, there isn't a game where you can explore the entirety of Tokyo seamlessly - certainly not in Unreal Engine 5 - and that's what makes this tech demo such a novelty.

Just off the top of my head, Persona 5 lets you explore a limited number of districts in Tokyo, while the Yakuza series largely takes place in a fictionalized version of Shibuya - called Kamurocho in Ryu Ga Gotoku's absurdist crime drama series - and Akiba's Trip is all about the glorious anime district of Akihabara. Yan Ru's Anime Tokyo presents Japan's capital city as we've seen it in countless an anime, and plenty of video games too, just on a much bigger scale.

Ue 5 demo download