The Matrix Awakens single-handedly proves next-gen graphics are inside attain of Sony and Microsoft’s new sport consoles. It’s in contrast to any tech demo you’ve ever tried earlier than. When we stated the following technology of gaming didn’t really arrive with Xbox Series X and PS5, that is the type of push that has the potential to show that round. And it’s free to obtain on these consoles proper now, so you need to actually give it a go.

Just don’t count on it to make you query your actuality — the uncanny valley continues to be alive and nicely.

I jacked into The Matrix Awakens right now after watching our unique interview with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss — they play Neo and Trinity, I’m certain you already know — and listening to breathless reward round its Game Awards debut. At first, I used to be wowed by how sensible Keanu Reeves appears off the bat, however for those who watch intently (within the demo or the video atop this publish) that the characters within the demo get much less and fewer spectacular as time goes on.

Screenshot by Umar Shakir / The Verge

We go from a veritable doppelganger of Reeves that will need to have been no less than partially real-life footage, to uncanny valley puppetry (what robotic is sporting Keanu’s pores and skin?) to cutscene-quality online game avatars, to lastly simply pretty common online game characters roaming round a world with no explicit objective. From a “digital humans” perspective, the phantasm breaks fairly fast.

Screenshot by Umar Shakir / The Verge

It truthfully jogs my memory a little bit of the unique Final Fantasy VII, the place Cloud, Tifa, Barrett and Aerith may look fairly totally different relying on whether or not you had been taking part in a battle, watching a cutscene, or traversing the world — as a result of regardless that developer Square may produce state-of-the-art graphics, there weren’t sources to provide every thing the identical stage of polish.

Image: Epic Games

But from a “is it time for photorealistic video game cities?” perspective, The Matrix Awakens is critically convincing. It’s head-and-shoulders above essentially the most photorealistic online game cities we’ve seen to this point, together with these within the Spider-Man, Grand Theft Auto and Watch Dogs sequence. Going again to take a look at videos of those games, even the newest ones that added real-time raytracing, their cities look game-like by comparability.

Screenshot by Umar Shakir / The Verge

Despite glitches and an sometimes uneven framerate, The Matrix Awakens metropolis feels extra actual, because of Unreal Engine’s unimaginable world illumination and real-time raytracing (“The entire world is lit by only the sun, sky and emissive materials on meshes,” claims Epic), the element of the procedurally generated buildings, and the way dense all of it is by way of automobiles and foot visitors.

Screenshot by Umar Shakir / The Verge

And essentially the most convincing half is that it’s not only a scripted sequence working in real-time in your PS5 or Xbox like virtually each different tech demo you’ve seen — you get to run, drive, and fly by means of it, manipulate the angle of the solar, activate filters, and dive right into a full photograph mode, as quickly because the scripted and on-rails shooter elements of the demo are achieved.

Not that there’s loads to do in The Matrix Awakens besides discovering other ways to absorb the view. You can’t land on buildings, there’s no automobile chases apart from the scripted one, no bullets to dodge. You can crash any one of many sport’s 38,146 drivable automobiles into any of the opposite automobiles or partitions, I assume. I did a bunch of that earlier than I received bored, although, simply taking on this planet. Here are another spectacular stats from the sport from Epic’s press launch (by way of Eurogamer and VentureBeat):

• The metropolis is 4,138 km extensive and 4.968 km lengthy, barely bigger than the scale of downtown Los Angeles
• The metropolis floor is 15.79 km²
• The metropolis perimeter is 14.519 km lengthy
• There are 260 km of roads within the metropolis
• There are 512 km of sidewalk within the metropolis
• There are 1,248 intersections within the metropolis
• There are 45,073 parked automobiles, of which 38,146 are drivable and destructible
• There are 17,000 simulated visitors autos on the street which can be destructible
• 7,000 buildings
• 27,848 lamp posts on the road aspect solely
• 12,422 sewer holes
• Almost 10 million distinctive and duplicated belongings had been created to make town
• The complete world is lit by solely the solar, sky and emissive supplies on meshes. No mild sources had been positioned for the tens of hundreds of road lights and headlights. In night time mode, practically all lighting comes from the thousands and thousands of emissive constructing home windows
• 35,000 simulated MetaHuman pedestrians
• Average polygon rely? 7000k buildings manufactured from 1000s of belongings and every asset could possibly be as much as thousands and thousands of polygons so we’ve a number of billions of polygons to make up simply the buildings of town

Epic Games’ pitch is that Unreal Engine 5 builders can do that or higher with its ready-made instruments at their disposal, and I can’t wait to see them attempt. Not that photorealistic video games are essentially my favorites, however I’ll take all of the immersion I can get.

It would certain be good to lastly have an excellent sport primarily based on The Matrix, too, hint-hint-wink-wink. If there’s an excellent script, it certain appears like Keanu and Carrie-Anne may be up for it!