What the Next Generation of Unreal Driving Games Could Look Like


A free demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5 based on the Matrix movie series has been released, and shows the immense potential of the next generation of UE based games.

In 1999, The Matrix was released to theatres and blew the minds of theatregoers worldwide. In 2021, The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is blowing the minds of gamers.

The Matrix Awakens title is more of a showcase of what Unreal Engine 5 games will look like rather than being a true game, but it does allow PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S gamers to assume the controls and walk, fly or drive to explore the massive open world environment.

There are two reasons why this should appeal to sim racers and racing game fans. First, the Unreal Engine has been successfully implemented in many racing titles, ranging from the simulation-focused Assetto Corsa Competizione to the fun-focused Hot Wheels: Unleashed. Second, TMA allows you to drive any of the over 38,000 (that’s not a typo) vehicles parked around the map.

The result is nothing short of staggering. The visuals presented by The Matrix Awakens looks better than any title I’ve played in my life. If this UE5 demonstration had been limited to one city block or one building it would be impressive, but Epic Games has somehow packed in 250 kilometers of roads to explore across the 16 square kilometer map.

The Unreal Engine 5 shows massive improvements in the use of light, and the physics associated with the movement and interaction of soft objects is extremely impressive. In the context of driving, the physics of the soft objects has been implemented with the body of your vehicle, so the deformations from impacts to body work approaches the level of the best car damage models in gaming.

This is truly a mind-blowing experience. Of course, the implementation of this technology to games will yield varying results, but the graphics and physics possibilities of the Unreal Engine 5 are astonishing. Let’s hope our favourite racing game developers are taking a careful look at this engine for future titles.

What are your thoughts on the Unreal Engine 5 for racing games? Let us know on Twitter at @RaceDepartment or in the comments section below!
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

L
As a racing fan what gets me excited is whatever the new tech brings in terms of sound rendering (which is the big immersion downpoint in older sims which have very good physics, for me) and overall optimization of tasks to be handled by the GPU like some of you guys said. Nanite also looks good from the standpoint of having the most real-world looking tracks out there, but this doesn't really make a sim.
 
boomn
Stereo said:
I'm a little hesitant to compare sims to these AAA games that can just hire thousands of artists to make the world look so detailed... yes the tech is neat but you can replicate most of the visuals in AC+CSP (probably not the bullet time bullet trails or explosions...) it's just expensive to put that level of detail in every building for a dozen kilometers.

And of course the cinematic segments would be motion capture off of actors & subject to usual film processes (manual focus, exposure, etc.) that you can't actually do during gameplay cause it's expert work.
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Epic appears to share your concern as a lot of the new features of UE5 are for quicker/easier content creation, and a lot of the companies they've purchased are for tools to help this too. Advanced photogrammetry tools, large libraries of prebuilt resources, automatic real-time LOD, easier character animation and tools to help with correct human motion and expression, and more. Hopefully it lives up to this promise and is a big help for smaller developers!
 
Patrik Marek
there is defnitely lot of great stuff, but you can also see that the cars were not the main objective of this , and something like Forza5 looks way better / more realistic - imo
but this could be a game changer for something like GTA6 !
 
N
I really don't care about graphics, I'd rather have better physics (of course) and features. Just as an example, the number of games without safety/pace car is too high. A couple years back GTR2 and rFactor had them.
 
K
Very nice, but I will have to start saving right now if I want to afford the $9,000 video card that will be needed to run these sims! :D
 
Ad_Schneider
NobodyKnowsReally said:
I really don't care about graphics, I'd rather have better physics (of course) and features. Just as an example, the number of games without safety/pace car is too high. A couple years back GTR2 and rFactor had them.
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Can you drive without seeing the track? Atmosphere can act in a driver´s emotional and make concentration harder or better. This is also simulation.
ACC and Kartkraft are games that uses UE and runs very smooth. It makes my gtx 1070 in 2k looks like a new gpu.
 
davoroni
I don't see the point if current higher range pleb set up for a rig is like $3-5k I built a pc last year, RTX video cards 32gig ram etc and I still can't max out iracing its close on triples but FPS is still limited, Assetto is close, but AMS2 still gets pretty warm.
What does it take to run such graphics and good sim feel and keep it in the realm of real sales?
It is frustrating to build to our heart's content and that build being less effective when complete, I know that's how things are I still don't like it.
Soon it will be virtual machines running this stuff, and we will lose the pc building side of it. Just a docking station and a subscription to everything. (Don't @ me about iracing)
 
ShredatorFIN
Honestly didn't expect this good graphics yet, not in many years. I'm impressed. Although, it's just a demo. But still, it has some functionality of a real game, like car damage and big open city.

Sims will look like this (and better) eventually. Making a closed track look good is far easier, than a big open city. Hardware gets better (this shortage of components won't last forever), you can have both good physics and good graphics, eventually. ACC and AMS2 already kind of does, things will evolve on both fronts in the coming years. Not just physics

But I think Assetto Corsa 2 would preferably support mods, don't know how Unreal 5 works with that
 
I
is it just me or does it not look THAT good? i mean it looks better than current gta5, but it SHOULD. and looking at how the cars act there are obviously NO physics going on, its all just hand animated on rails movement. the cars specifically dont look nearly as good as something in ac. i mean, ya, im sure theres lots of cool optimization stuff going on in the background that most people cant understand without a programming degree, but if this was supposed to be a mind blowing demonstration of next gen graphics, it really isnt. now the human models at the beginning were very good, especially the hair, which is always a hard part to make look real. but that doesnt say anything because they were about the only thing in the scene so....
 
ShredatorFIN
I wasn't as impressed until I saw a longer video where people actually play the demo and walk around, the city is massive and has detail everywhere, with huge draw distance and almost zero popping. (Draw distance is important for sims)


It has also this "Matrix filter" which does some green color grading and can be turned off, looks ever better (more real) without it. The first part of that video is without the filter.

To me it looks pretty damn realistic, better than say Forza Horizon 5 on max graphics, which is currently pretty much the prettiest driving game around

I don't see the point of criticizing physics, yes there isn't much on display here, but ACC uses it's own physics, not the Unreal 4 physics
 
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G
I'd like to understand why technology advances so much and they can't make a realistic mouth, it always seems like the mouth doesn't have depth, it's just a texture, it always feels weird.
 
Patrik Marek
gleidson84 said:
I'd like to understand why technology advances so much and they can't make a realistic mouth, it always seems like the mouth doesn't have depth, it's just a texture, it always feels weird.
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doing beliveable CG characters is one of the hardest thing to do , you can read about "uncanny valley"

even in movies, this is a big challenge and it's all baked / pre-rendered / tweaked , and it can still look not so great at times , so doing this in real time is whole another level

there are definitely some very interesting characters going on through, google for ZIVA company
 
ArkanHell
Unreal engine for simracing? No thx, its big, its powerfull, its beautiful, but is damn hard to tame.

With a really big developing studio a huge amount of people and lots of money you can make it look gorgeous and with good performance, But this kind of situation aint happen often.

I been playing Days Gone a couple of months ago in my humble R9 3950x gtx1080 triple 2k 164hz screen setup at 60-80 fps (obviously not everything maxxed and with a lot of .ini tweaks) and was gorgeous, i was seriously impressed how good runs and looks mostly cos anything else i tried in UE last years, was far away from this behavior.

And take a look to AC with Csp and ACC, no matter if its in VR or in triples, AC looks better and perform better than ACC. I suposse Kunos tried to do their best but they are a small team without the resources of the big fishes out there, probably they can do better if they try again with UE cos they are more experienced on it, but if same team put 2 driving sims, one with their own engine and another one with UE and their own one performs better... maybe means something.

Regards.
 
T
I’m old enough to know that driving/racing sims were always ugly as £¥#k but we played them because they felt amazing and realistic to drive and that was the most important thing. I’ve always had mid level pc systems but I’ve always been able to run racing sims for years on triples no problem. What ACC has taught me is that the price of entry is going to get higher and higher going forward if you want to race in triples and VR.
That’s why I love Iracing, the graphics are absolutely fine despite being dated. I find the lighting actually makes it look more realistic than some other sims, and it runs like a dream in Vr and triples.
 
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N
It seems that y2k era is back. A simple greenish filter is such a characteristic of that period, like neon grids in 80s.
 
Durge Driven
Still rather studio collaboration to license one engine for all sims

Give it a minute, think pros many, cons none ?

New age of digital simulation we are happy identical cars in each sim feels different, sounds different, different FFB, different VR

Seriously
 

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