Unreal Engine 5.5 Demo Unveils Cyberpunk Future

A groundbreaking tech demo, powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3, has been released, providing players with an immersive walkthrough of a futuristic cyberpunk city. Developed by the talented artist Sciontidesign, this project draws inspiration from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the visually striking Blade Runner franchise, and the expansive Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic. The demo was showcased on high-end hardware, utilizing an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000MHz.

This technical demonstration exclusively uses dynamic lighting to showcase the capabilities of Nanite with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, combined with Screen Space Reflections. Notably, it does not employ advanced features such as Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting, which underscores the impressive potential of Unreal Engine 5 even when its most sophisticated tools are not in use.

While the rain effect may appear somewhat artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is strikingly detailed, adding significant depth to the urban environment. However, the demo is marred by frequent invisible walls, which can detract from the overall immersion. Despite the consistently stunning visual experiences offered by Unreal Engine 5 tech demos, games developed on this engine often face performance challenges when applied in real-world scenarios.