As the years go by, video games, particularly from the AAA sections of the industry, are becoming so lifelike that it's possible for them to be nearly indistinguishable from reality. With Epic's Unreal Engine being one of the best game development toolkits out there, the software is enabling studios to create digital realms that were unimaginable a decade ago. The engine's primary function is to help actualize games, and a recent video shows just how detailed such worlds can be.
In a recent clip uploaded to YouTube, user Cycu1 has shown just how realistically something like a dense forest can be rendered in Unreal Engine 5. The video begins by showing a thick area of trees, along with a number of spherical and a cube objects made of different materials. Moving about the environment really demonstrates the power of UE5, with its true-to-life lighting effects, detailed flora, and the fact that branches and small plants bend when the character moves through them. There's even a sequence that takes place in winter, with the snow-covered forest looking just as stunning as the summer biome.
The YouTube channel itself specializes in showing off visual comparisons. One such example demonstrates the differences between the PS4 and PS5 upgrade of Resident Evil 3 remake. There's even been a video that takes a step back in time and shows what the original Unreal Engine looked like when it came out in 1995, giving a clearer idea of just how far video game development software has come over the past few decades.
Of course, it's not just tech demos and rendering samples that the engine is used for. There are a number of AAA releases that will be utilizing Unreal Engine 5, such as Redfall, Layers of Fears, and Stalker 2. Even CD Projekt Red is turning to the ubiquitous development toolkit for the next The Witcher entry, which gives some indication of just how sought after this software is when it comes to creating games, especially games with immensely detailed graphics.
Epic made Unreal Engine 5 available earlier this year, with a demonstration of its capabilities. This included showcasing the multiplayer FPS Lyra, which comes shipped with the engine and acts as a means of teaching the basics of level editing. In short, the latest version of the Unreal Engine is proving to be one of the most powerful development toolkits in the industry, and the video Cycu1 posted recently is just one small sample of its prowess.