Watch this: dev creates Starfield demo in Unreal Engine 5 – and it looks amazing

techradar.com:

A developer has created a short Unreal Engine 5 demo inspired by Starfield and Mass Effect 4, giving us a glimpse of what the upcoming space-faring RPGs might look like.

Pasquale Scionti, a senior lighting and Lookdev artist at development studio Ninja Theory, created the demo as a riff on Starfield and Mass Effect 4 ahead of their launches. They shared the minute-and-half video on Twitter, alongside a couple of choice screenshots.

The demo shows a lone astronaut walking across a sepia-tinted planet that looks something akin to Mars. A small flying vehicle hovers nearby, while a meteor shower rains across the sky. Towards the end of the video, the cosmonaut approaches what looks like a parked spaceship, although one with plenty of appendages.

The clip really shows off what the Unreal Engine 5 can do. The expansive alien landscape is rendered in pretty mesmerizing detail, and its sheer scale is impressive. But it’s obvious Scionti’s talents are in lighting. The reflections off the astronaut’s spacesuit look dazzling, and the cloudy sky looks like it’s been ripped straight from a photograph. You can watch the clip for yourself below.

WIP Inspired by Mass Effect & StarfieldUnreal Engine 5 Lumen Nanite character with Cc3 & als4 https://t.co/hKkMbZcfnMhttps://t.co/MB2ACfuS36#unrealengine5 #UE5 #MassEffect #Starfield #planet #quixel #Videogame @UnrealEngine @quixeltools @80Level @bioware @BethesdaStudios pic.twitter.com/gFKmoKQb2pMay 17, 2022

While the demo is a fan-made project that doesn't have any official association with Bethesda or BioWare, it offers an interesting look into what triple-A video games like Starfield and Mass Effect 4 could one day look like.

Starfield’s director Todd Howard described the upcoming sci-fi RPG as