The Matrix Awakens released, offers first Unreal Engine 5 demo

A new interactive experience set in the world of The Matrix just went live, giving players an immersive, real-time look at Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. Playable demos, which are called The Matrix awakensNo explicit connection to Resurrections of the Matrix, the fourth movie in the franchise, Epic pitches the experience as “the future of storytelling.”

Polygon was able to talk with Jeff Farris, technical director and Jerome Platteaux, art director about the collaborative project. Resurrections of the Matrix director Lana Wachowski came about.

According to Platteaux The Matrix awakens spawned out of the Epic’s Special Projects team, a group of developers and technical artists within the studio devoted to producing an annual tech demo designed to showcase the latest innovations in Unreal Engine technology. “Last year we did the PS5 demo with [Lumen in the Land of Nanite], and a couple years before we did the ray tracing demo with the stormtrooper in the elevator,” Platteaux said.

For the 2021 demo for Unreal Engine 5, the team wanted to go even further, creating not only a showcase of the engine’s capabilities to render dynamic open-world environments, but something that they could actually let players experience for themselves.

“We thought that Lumen in the Land of the Nanite was an amazing demo, but we kind of missed that opportunity of letting people get their hands on it,” Farris told Polygon. “I think a lot of people believed that it was real, but there were obviously still questions. We wanted to make all of these systems available for the public. Let’s go one step further, raise the stakes, and actually put this into consumers hands.”

The team had to decide if the demo was entirely new or would it be based upon an existing IP. It was through Kim Libreri, Epic Games’ chief technology officer who previously worked as a VFX supervisor on the Matrix trilogy, and Platteaux himself, who worked on Reloaded: The MatrixAnd The Matrix Revolutions, that the team connected with Lana Wachowski who at the time was in the middle of filming the trilogy’s forthcoming sequel, Resurrections of the Matrix. With Lana’s permission, the team set about creating a stand-alone interactive showcase of Unreal Engine 5’s capabilities set in the Matrix universe.

Keanu Reynolds plays Thomas Anderson. This scene was recreated with Unreal Engine 5 in real time. Keanu Reeves, the younger actor was based upon the original CG model that was used in the making of Reloaded: The MatrixThis scene has been rendered in Unreal 5 with greater visual detail and fidelity. The scene then transitions into a live action scene featuring Keanu Reeves, written by Wachowski and directed herself.

“We asked ourselves: can we try to imagine what the future of storytelling can be?” says Platteaux. This demo is an example of how to address that question using live action footage mixed with computer-generated imagery. It uses an interactive action piece, as well as an open-world setting. The Matrix awakens feels like a natural continuation of the franchise’s roots in transmedia storytelling, albeit compressed into the space of a 10 minute demo.

Keanu and Carrie Anne Moss played the roles of Neo and Trinity in the introduction to the demo. It was recorded in Berlin. Resurrections of the MatrixIt was still in production. The demo’s human resistance fighter IO is based on a MetaHuman Creator trailer. It was originally shown in this trailer earlier this year. “It’s a good way to show that these characters can look really good, because they have to be right next to a real person like Keanu and Carrie-Anne. Matrix Awakens trends walk a fine line between philosophy and gunfire-laden pleasure. Players can engage in fast gunfights on a vast highway network, before being allowed to explore an open-world sandbox town unimpeded. Production took more than 20 hours and took almost a year.

When you ask whether The Matrix awakensThere were no explicit relationships to Resurrections of the Matrix, Farris and Platteaux stressed that the demo was an entirely stand-alone experience and only that — a demo, not a game. Unreal Engine 5 should be available in Spring next year. This will allow users to access the assets needed to create The Matrix Awakens. Platteaux emphasized this with evident excitement. “Some way, somewhere, we’ll see a small team being able to create large scale environments with these tools. Unreal Engine 5 is all about empowering those people.”

The Matrix awakensIt is compatible with Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X.