A demonstration video of the future Unrecord game has been leaked: It impresses with its photorealism. Faced with accusations of faking (a video that would actually be real), the co-creator responded with evidence. This isn’t the first time an Unreal Engine 5 environment has provoked this debate.
A robot that looks like us is supposed to evoke a psychological phenomenon: the Störtal, a particularly disturbing feeling. Will we feel this for video games too? A video published a few days ago, in April 2023, is particularly disturbing: it shows an FPS (a first-person video game) whose graphics are so realistic that it is difficult to distinguish them from a real recording.
This game, entitled Unrecord, was developed by a French studio: DRAMA. This demo is purely visual at this point. It is not playable to the public, not even in preview form, and no release has been announced.
But such photorealism without anyone actually playing the video game and seeing it with their own eyes raised a lot of questions. For many, it would just be fake on social media. The accusation comes as no surprise as the graphic quality is surprising. Barely two days after the uproar, the studio’s co-founder and programmer Alexandre Spindler denied it.
Unrecord is developed with Unreal Engine 5
“For those who thought Unrecord was fake or a video, sorry,” Spindler tweeted. in a tweet dated April 21, 2023. To substantiate his point, a video in which we present the famous game within the software of the graphics engine Unreal Engine 5. The Abandoned Building tab is open and all the functions related to the development of such Sequence. It also traverses and traverses the map through multiple rooms very quickly, suggesting that this is actually a virtual environment.
The result does not contradict the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5. It should not be forgotten that the first demos of this engine in 2022 had already surprised everyone. Recreating a subway station on Unreal Engine 5 was extremely disturbing even in photorealism, to the point where many were puzzled again. But that was a static environment: Unrecord’s is even more amazing because it’s “in action”, meaning the number of supported parameters is larger.
In order to permanently silence the critics, it probably would have been better if DRAMA had shown a sequence of designing the environment, moving objects, or modifying textures slightly. Or by offering several very different gameplay sessions. But this video brings an additional element in favor of a virtual video. For this to be fake, this studio would have to put in a lot of effort, maybe even more than building the virtual environment. DRAMA presents itself on its website as a real project, with a team and a game in development to defend.
Unrecord also has a Steam page. There are some additional screenshots on this page where the virtual aspect seems a bit clearer. Even on the video itself, observing the environment allows us to see some elements that seem frozen, reminding us that they still look unreal.
Also other games currently being developed on Unreal Engine 5 can be very impressive in their cutscene or gameplay videos:
The next Tomb Raider that we don’t have a picture of has been announced using Unreal Engine 5. For a whole part of the future of video games it will therefore be necessary to get used to photorealism.
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