The Witcher IV's lush world is on display in Unreal Engine 5.6 demo

Epic Games held its annual State of Unreal event today, offering a first look at some exciting new features coming to Unreal Engine 5 through a tech demo set in the world of The Witcher IV.

The team at Epic Games, together with CD Projekt Red — developers of the Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 — premiered a roughly ten-minute gameplay and cinematic demo that follows Ciri through a snowy mountain pass in Kovir and into the bustling port of Valdrest. The visuals in the demo are not truly final scenes from The Witcher IV but serve as a proof of concept intended to highlight the cutting-edge graphics and tech behind the new Witcher installment.

The demo ran on a PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with ray tracing enabled. This was made possible by a slew of new open-world building features coming to Unreal Engine ...