State of Unreal - Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II | GDC 2023

It still doesn’t look real, there’s something about the exaggeration of the lips and her teeth that I can’t fully explain, but it still looks amazing.

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Another subject of the technical showcase was action RPG Lords of the Fallen, with a more conventional look at how games are made using the engine:

Lords of the Fallen - State of Unreal Technical Showcase Trailer GDC | Wishlist: PC, PS5 & Xbox X/S

Next up is this gameplay demo from Infinitesimals, a backyard bugs game that I’m pretty sure was first announced years ago, but which is still in development. This clip is a little more developer-focused, but still gives you a look at how Unreal Engine 5 handles the scale of a large open world:

Infinitesimals - Unreal 5 Gameplay Demo | State of Unreal 2023

And finally we’ve got this driving video, which is not just an ad for Unreal Engine and Epic’s Quixel, but for EV company Rivian as well (their car’s dash screens run on the Unreal Engine). This one is showing off some lovely foliage, along with some impressive driving physics as well (it’s particularly neat how the car will hit small rocks that will then fly away):

Unreal Engine 5.2 - Next-Gen Graphics Tech Demo | State of Unreal 2023

While it’s expected to take everything shown at these presentations with a grain of salt, it’s encouraging that three of the four videos here were of actual games currently in development, meaning that the usual “well, your actual games aren’t going to look this good” caveats we normally need on these posts aren’t quite as needed here.