Epic Games has in the past already presented impressive demos of its Unreal Engine 5. However, these were neither playable nor associated with a famous license. To make an impression and drive the point home, the American studio has decided to make a big splash by offering a new technical demo that is both free, playable and linked to the universe of The Matrix. But to achieve its goal, Epic Games needed reinforcements.
Epic Games has just launched its The Matrix Awakens demo on PS5 and Xbox Series S | X. This technical demo running on Unreal Engine 5 has the particularity of mixing kinematics and playable experience. According to the American studio, the aim of the process is to show what it is possible to do by combining Unreal Engine 5 and new generation consoles.
The Matrix Awakens, more than just a demo
For the purposes of The Matrix Awakens, Epic Games claims to have created an open-world city of 16 km2. The latter includes 7,000 buildings, 1,248 intersections, 45,073 parked cars (of which 38,146 can be driven), 260 km of roads and 512 km of sidewalks. As shown in the video above, many effects enabled by Unreal Engine 5 are also used in this demo.
On the PlayStation Blog, Ross Hogben of Epic Games talks about the people and groups who participated in the project. The film crews were represented by Lana Wachowski, James McTeigue, and John Gaeta. And on the other side were “Epic Games and partners. If the article does not go into detail, one of these partners has been revealed publicly. And it is relatively surprising.
Private partner
Indeed, one of Epic Games’ partners on this The Matrix Awakens demo was none other than The Coalition. The same The Coalition that develops the Gears of War games within Microsoft Game Studios. The information is most official since it was revealed by Guy Welch. The latter is marketing director at Xbox and deals in particular with the Gears of War series.
Even though The Coalition is a Microsoft-owned studio, ties with Epic Games remain strong. The Coalition was indeed founded from the team that developed the Gears of War at Epic. And obviously, both camps are open to the idea of working together. This partnership around The Matrix Awakens is proof of this. The arrival of Gears of War heroes Marcus Fenix and Kait Diaz in Fortnite is another.
As a reminder, The Matrix Awakens demo can be downloaded for free on PS5 and Xbox Series X | S. However, it takes about 30 GB of free space on the SSD of the consoles to recover it.
What do you think of The Matrix Awakens? Did you get this technical demo? Does The Coalition’s participation in the project surprise you? Do you believe that full games will soon achieve such a rendering? Give us your opinion in the comments below.
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