On July 27, 2025, Epic Games launched its latest proprietary engine,Unreal Engine 5. Revealed two years prior and heavily associated with the lead-up to the PlayStation 5, Unreal Engine 5 is a tool for a new era of console power. WhileUnreal Engine 5supports all existing systems that Unreal 4 did, it is uniquely designed to take advantage of the speed and processing power of PS5, Xbox Series X, and high-end gaming computers. With a year in Early Access under its belt and roughly four years of development, this engine is ready to take the gaming world by storm.
While it seems like a general upgrade to Unreal Engine 4, the various features and functions included in Unreal 5 push it to new heights. Gamers are excited to seegames both new and old use Unreal Engine 5. Perhaps the greatest asset Unreal Engine 5 offers is Nanite, an engine that allows for highly detailed photographic assets to be imported. Aside from being linked to the massive photogrammetry library Quixel and the realistic MetaHuman Creator, Nanite automatically handles the level of detail in a given scene. The Lumen lighting engine also provides a fully dynamic global illumination solution, and virtual shadow maps provide an equivalent for shading. These could benefit any game looking to push its visual fidelity to the next level, but may be of particular use in realistic horror games.
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A Digital Recreation Reveals Unreal Engine 5’s Potential
A recentshowcase of an Unreal Engine 5 projectby 3D environmental artist Lorenzo Drago, also known as subjectn, has proven the engine’s power to many. It is a two-and-a-half minute video showing a digital recreation of the Etchu-Daimon train station in Imizu, Japan. The video is shot as if it was filmed with a vertical smartphone, which does a lot to emphasize how close the train station is to its real counterpart. During the daytime section, viewers may mistake the footage as actual film taken in an empty train station. The rapid fade to night and stiff-moving flashlight beam reveal the video’s true nature, but by then it has proven its point.
Unreal Engine 5 is capable of simulating lifelike environments, and this showcase makes its potential easy to understand. Notably, whileLumen was used to handle the lighting, Nanite was not used at all. The models, textures, and animation in the video were all made by Lorenzo Drago, with only the foliage on the sides of the train platform being imported from the Quixel library. This project took one artist a single month to make, so a team using all of Unreal 5’s features could conceivably accomplish a lot. With all of its success, the video gives off an eerie vibe, especially after it transitions to nighttime. It’s an uncanny feeling that wouldn’t feel out of place in a first-person horror game.
Unreal Engine 5 is a Powerful Tool for Horror Creators
Not all horror games work best with absolute realism, but a lot of them aim for it to drive immersion.Titles like theSilent Hillfranchisethrive on putting players into familiar but distorted locations. Unreal Engine 5 can help the average game developer get most of the way there. Film-quality models of objects and structures can be imported directly into the engine, while character models can be designed in the MetaHuman Creator. Light sources and shadows are handled with relative ease thanks to Lumen and virtual shadow mapping, and the engine offers all the versatility Unreal Engine 4 already had. Wandering through an empty location will feel more authentic and unnerving than ever.
This doesn’t just apply to environments and human characters, either. Monsters and supernatural sights will benefit from the granular level of detail capable in UE5. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the modernResident Evilgames, which make use of Capcom’s RE Engine to provide a high level of realistic detail via scanned materials. From the nearly human features ofResident Evil 2 Remakezombiesto how they fall apart when shot, the authenticity provided by Capcom’s engine enhances the experience. It does so even more when imposing, human-like figures such as Lady Dimitrescu or Mr. X are leisurely chasing the player.Unreal Engine 5could bring the innovations made by the RE Engine to a wider pool of developers, and that accessibility can only benefit the gaming industry.
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