The Matrix Awakens:
An Unreal Engine 5 Experience
Art Blast

Hello everyone! To celebrate the launch of Unreal Engine 5, we couldn’t be prouder to share a behind-the-scenes look at the artistry and craftsmanship that went into building “The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience”.

Released for free on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in December of last year, The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is a playable and boundary-pushing showcase for what’s possible in Unreal Engine 5 on consumer hardware, featuring a sprawling and living open-world city playground for players to explore.

Created by a relatively small team at Epic Games, along with our partners, such as SideFX, Evil Eye Pictures, The Coalition, WetaFX (formerly Weta Digital), Aspiring Unicorn Games, Dekogon Studios, Airship Interactive, and many others–the experience offers a vision for what the future of interactive storytelling and entertainment could look like. 

We’ve also put this world in your hands with our free City Sample, complete with buildings, vehicles, and crowds of high-quality MetaHuman characters. Downloading the sample, anyone can get a better understanding of how we used new and improved systems in Unreal Engine 5 to create the experience and can even add to it, creating entirely new games or projects. It serves as a tangible demonstration that UE5 offers all of the components you need as a creator to tell new stories and express yourself without limits.

We want to share a heartfelt thanks to all of the talented artists and teams who helped make this one-of-a-kind project a reality. Creating this was a dream come true, we hope you enjoy this very special trip down the rabbit hole.

Enjoy!

Jerome Platteaux, Technical Art Director
Epic Games

Art Direction

Jerome Platteaux – Art Director

Environment Artists

Bastian Hoppe – Lead Environment Artist

Nicole Gorny – Environment Artist

Nicholas Boulanger – Environment Artist

3D Artists

Jit Chun Khiew (JC) – Senior Modeller

Matt Fitzgerald – Lead Modeller

Cedric Enriquez Canlas – Lead Modeller

Layne Howe – Modeller

Lisa Hardisty – Modeller

Nicholas Hodgson – Modeller

Andrew Kunzel – Modeler

Julien Didisheim – 3D Artist

Clinton Crumpler – Art Director

Mark Normington – Environment Artist

Alexander Sheynin – Environment Artist

Miroslav Baev – Environment Artist

Jose Manuel Guevara – Environment Artist

Erick Tjoe – Environment Artist

Texture Artists

Zoe Lord – Texture Artist

Character Artists

Lana Lan – Lead Character Artist

Technical Artists

Quentin Marmier – Lead Technical Artist

UI/UX Artists

Aspiring Unicorn Games – UI/UX Design & Programming