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The Matrix Awakens demo available for free now – looks unreal
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While it’s not a full video game, The Matrix Awakens tech demo is visually impressive and can be downloaded right now.
The existence of a Matrix Unreal Engine 5 tech demo was leaked ahead of its announcement at The Game Awards 2021 but it was never entirely clear what it was, outside of a promotion for the upcoming The Matrix Resurrections movie.
Fans got a brief teaser during the event last night, with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss themselves introducing it. But why watch a short snippet of it when you can hop on your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S and download it now for free?
Or if you’re one of the unlucky ones that’s still struggling to get hold of either console, the official Unreal Engine YouTube channel has uploaded a much meatier dive into the demo.
Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly meant to demonstrate the graphical potential of the engine. Epic Games had already shown one of these last year, but this one arguably looks even more impressive.
Without context, the car chase scene that kicks off the demo could be mistaken for a scene from the actual Matrix movies. Even with Reeves and Moss digitally de-aged, it took us a minute to realise that it wasn’t live action anymore.
There is some gameplay to keep you engaged with demo, namely a rail shooter section where you take out the tyres of pursing vehicles driven by Agents. After that, however, you’re placed in an open world for you to freely explore, either by foot, car, or flight.
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In case you’re wondering, the demo doesn’t appear to have any meaningful connection to the new movie. If anything, Neo and Trinity’s dialogue is incredibly tongue-in-cheek as they seem to acknowledge that the whole thing is just a marketing ploy. Although a new clip from the movie was shown at The Game Awards as well.
This won’t mean that these sorts of visuals will become commonplace in video games any time soon, but it’s certainly an intriguing glimpse into a possible future for the industry. Now if only more people could actually get the new consoles…
The Matrix Awakens is available now for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
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