The Witcher IV’s lush world is on show in Unreal Engine 5.6 demo

Epic Video games held its annual State of Unreal occasion at the moment, offering a first look at some thrilling new options coming to Unreal Engine 5 via a tech demo set on this planet of The Witcher IV.

The crew at Epic Video games, along with CD Projekt Purple — builders of the Witcher collection and Cyberpunk 2077 — premiered a roughly ten-minute gameplay and cinematic demo that follows Ciri via a snowy mountain move in Kovir and into the bustling port of Valdrest. The visuals within the demo are usually not actually closing scenes from The Witcher IV however function a proof of idea supposed to spotlight the cutting-edge graphics and tech behind the brand new Witcher installment.

The demo ran on a PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with ray tracing enabled. This was made attainable by a slew of latest open-world constructing options coming to Unreal Engine 5.6, together with a brand new “Quick Geometry Streaming Plugin.” Epic says the brand new plugin ought to assist open-worlds load quicker, although precisely how a lot quicker is unclear. A market scene set in Valdrest brimming with life additionally underscored the power to create scenes stuffed with high-fidelity characters and visible results.

Maybe probably the most thrilling a part of the demo was the huge foliage that made up the forests of Kovir. That is because of Nanite Foliage, a brand new system that renders each leaf and department as actual 3D geometry as a substitute of flat textures. This new function, slated for launch with Unreal Engine 5.7, permits for dense high-fidelity foliage with out an enormous hit to efficiency.

Unreal Engine 5.6 is now obtainable although lots of the instruments introduced at the moment are marked as experimental, together with the Quick Geometry Streaming Plugin, new Management Rig Physics, improved movement seize instruments and extra. There isn’t a particular launch date for Unreal Engine 5.7 but. As for The Witcher IV, we know to not count on it earlier than 2027.