This is not a game. The Matrix: Awakens is a tech demo developed to show to the world the power of Unreal Engine 5, the next big thing of the gaming industry.

I was amazed to see in this tech demo how the video games are developing. I know that The Matrix: Awakens was made for market reasons and I also know that we'll probably have wait for almost a decade to see a full game with this result but it's really cool see the future on your hands right now.

The tech demo looks like a attraction that we could see at Disney or Universal's park, especially if you have a good TV and a headphone. It's almost not a game but the action segments are really fun to play.

It's a short experience (30 minutes). The visuals are incredible and the gameplay is also pretty sick (but I have to say it has a encrypted action segments).

It's a free "game" so I think you should give it a try, especially if you want to see how the future of gaming will be.

It do be a UE5 tech demo. Will def admit things look incredibly photorealistic all throughout, and the setpieces in the car chase definitely looked expensive to make. I do wonder how many games going forward are actually going to look like this, or really if they should. The freeroam section did let me admire the whole city from various different angles and distances and the attention to detail is great. The city was also more spacious than I expected so driving around was fun too (though I won't give this game any awards in the driving physics or stable framerate department when doing so).

Despite the fancy expensive setpieces, the photorealistic graphics, and all the other fancy features that the game claims to have, I still have a hard time discerning this current generation with the previous one. As someone who hasn't seen the matrix and doesn't play much big-budget modern AAA games, you could probably have told me I was playing some watch dogs thing on PS4 or something and I would believe you. We've long since hit the point of diminishing returns on game visuals, and I hope games don't take more time and money to make as they chase for visual enhancements I won't really even notice.

Played on PS5
Also Available on Xbox Series X and S
Playtime: An Hour
No Spoilers

The Matrix Awakens is a tech demo developed and published by Epic Games. Directed and written by Lana Wachowski. It's a tech demo to showcase what Unreal Engine 5 can do and i have to say, it's pretty impressive.

There is not too much in the story department unfortunately. There is nothing in fact. We play as a woman, i don't know her name but no, it's not Trinity. And we shoot bad guys.

Core game takes about 15 minutes to beat, then you can do some other things that i don't want to talk about. They didn't show that part in the trailer and it was a very nice surprise for me. So yeah, you can spend a lot of time playing this game after you played that big action sequence.

It features Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss playing their iconic roles as Neo and Trinity, you can't play as them and both have a very small role but they do a great job.

Because it's a tech demo of course the most important thing is the graphics, the sound and the performance. Graphics are incredible. Faces looks stunning, you won't be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's in game, it's that good.

I played it with a headset, nothing interesting in the sound department. It doesn't sound bad, it just doesn't use 3D Audio or something like that. Or maybe it uses it and i didn't noticed. Performance is not good unfortunately. On PS5, there was multiple frame drops during the action scene.

It's a free demo so you can check it out. It's not something to go crazy but it was a good, enjoyable 15 minutes that takes a peek into the future of the video games.

Absolutely stunning.

Ever since my jaw dropped in 1996 when I first saw Super Mario 64, I have loved that first moment when new hardware really shows off what this console generation can do. The Matrix: Awakens was that moment for me, chronologically following SM64, Metroid Prime, Halo 3, and Uncharted 4.

It's very important to go into this knowing exactly what it is beforehand though: a tech demo. This is not a game, so don't expect any compelling gameplay of any kind. But when the latter half of the demo started, I was breathless. I could not believe what I was seeing and exploring.

Most of the time, I was thinking "My PS5 is rendering this???" though that was occasionally interrupted by bleak thoughts of how many high-res assets and textures are needed for any game on this scale, and that it will likely increase development time and be more grueling for employees. But it was hard to stay focused on that when there was such an immense, gorgeous cityscape to gawk at!!

I’m just a sucker for tech demos, I can’t do anything about it. And this is just one of the craziest things I’ve seen in a while. Whenever I imagined what rockstar would be able to do with the new console generations, having the new ssd speeds and data streaming rates that directly influence how detailed open worlds can get, I was thinking about this. Of course, this is on a small scale and without any gameplay, but we’re going to get there and that’s just absolutely insane. You don’t even have to be a matrix shill, like I am, to have to check this out. It’s crazy.