Unreal Engine 5 Now Comes With Lyra, A New Playable Shooter Demo

Epic Games has officially released Unreal Engine 5, a game development engine first unveiled in 2020. This is the same engine used in last year’s surprise Matrix demo, The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience.

Now anyone can download and use it. Also, to kick off your Unreal Engine 5 journey for both those in development and those who want something a little more casual, Epic Games has released a new playable shooter demo, Lyra. Of course, you can also play Lyra. Looks like a mix of Splitgate and Fortnite shooting mechanics. But what makes this demo unique is that it is fully customizable from a development standpoint. This allows users to modify lighting, platform position, and more.

Epic Games also released another Unreal Engine 5 demo, City Sample, but unlike Lyra, this demo is not playable. It’s the same city from the Matrix Awakens experience, but in this city, you’re free to see the city, buildings, vehicles and pedestrians.

Of course, this is just the beginning of Unreal Engine 5. Just as Epic Games developed on Unreal Engine 4, the company continues to iterate on Unreal Engine 5, implementing new features, updates, tools, and more. There are already developers using this new engine, including Epic Games itself. Chapter 3, Season 2 of Fortnite, which the player is currently playing, runs on Unreal Engine 5.

To learn more about Unreal Engine 5, you can view the full State of Unreal 2022 presentation here.