Epic Games unveils Unreal Engine 5 demo, demonstrates potential of next-gen consoles

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If news of the next generation of gaming consoles have failed to excite you, maybe the new demo from Epic Games will. The developer has announced the release of a demo to provide the public with a first look into what its Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) can do and it's amazing. It was able to deliver photo-realistic gameplay visuals that look like those out of a movie.

Dubbed the "Lumen in the Land of Nanite", the real-time demo showcases two new technologies. The first one is Lumen, a new type of dynamic illumination technology that can react to the scene and changes in lighting. For example, how the light bounces off different surfaces can be adjusted easily. From the description and demo, it's quite similar to how Nvidia's ray-tracing works.

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The second one is Nanite, which allows developers to greatly crank up the geometry count in games by virtualising different sources into micropolygon geometry. With UE5, developers can now import ZBrush models, Photogrammetry scans, CAD data, and more directly into the game engine. Once that's done, Nanite will do the heavy lifting, sparing developers from the need of worrying about optimising or creating Level of Details (LOD).

It should be noted that the demo was captured in real-time from a Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) devkit, which proves that the console is going to be amazing. Considering that the Xbox Series X will also be using the same custom AMD Zen 2 CPU and RDNA2 GPU, we can expect it to be capable of the same quality. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing games built on UE5 this year or even next year. The preview for UE5 won't be available till early 2021, while the official release is expected to be in late 2021.

For gamers, Epic Games' new UE5 demo is an exciting first look into the future of video games. It's also possible to see certain games developed on UE4 make the transition over to the new engine and Fortnite will be one such game. With that said, what game would you like to see remade on UE5? Let us know on our Facebook page and stay tuned to TechNave.com for more news like this.