Gears Of War Developer The Coalition Reveals First Demo In Unreal Engine 5

During a presentation at GDC 2021, Gears of War developer The Coalition revealed its first technical demo using the latest tools in Unreal Engine 5, including its impressive Lumen lighting system and Nanite, the engine's virtualized geometry system.

The demo, titled Alpha Point, isn't meant to represent any work on an existing game, but rather just the studio's first attempt at forming its working pipeline within the new engine for projects going forward. The demo is brief, with assets similar to the initial Unreal Engine 5 demo from last year. Despite that, it's got some glimpses of striking lighting and incredibly detailed geometry that is becoming a staple of Unreal Engine 5 showings.

In addition to Alpha Point, The Coalition also released a character render demo within Unreal Engine 5, too. The static model is packed with detail, letting you make out individual hairs in the beard and small blemishes on the character's armor. In both cases, the scenes were rendered in real-time on the Xbox Series X with an early version of Unreal Engine 5.

The full presentation from The Coalition is available online, too, presented by studio technical director Kate Rayner. It's an in-depth discussion on the studio's progress with Unreal Engine 5, as well as all the technology used in both demos above.

The Coalition has not announced its latest project yet. It is releasing Operation 8 for Gears 5 soon, which will be the game's last official content drop of its kind as the studio moves resources to future projects.