Epic Games hosted a new State of Unreal presentation today and The Coalition was part of the same. While the two companies have worked together on The Matrix Awakens, The Coalition debuted a brand new cinematic tech test running on Unreal Engine 5 called The Cavern. Boasting tens of millions of polygons rendered in real time, it reportedly offers 100x more detail. Check it out below.
The Coalition’s technical director Kate Rayner spoke to Xbox Wire about the demo and noted that it was the first ever cinematic made by the studio in Unreal Engine 5. She noted that the visuals and animations were running on Xbox Series X, “so that just gives you an idea of the visual fidelity and quality we’re going to be able to create. Demos like this allow us to learn a great deal about the performance of UE5, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be able to create some pretty incredible things with this new tech.”
Technologies like Nanite have been used in the tech test along with dynamic real-time global illumination courtesy of Lumen. Rayner also confirmed that the team has been working with Unreal Engine 5 for over a year, “staying up to date with the latest code, experimenting with content, and running lots of internal tests. This has empowered us to provide early feedback to Epic as a AAA studio with deep Xbox and Unreal Engine experience.”
While The Coalition’s next game has yet to be announced, it’s confirmed to be working on several “unannounced projects” as per Xbox’s Aaron Greenberg. A LinkedIn profile indicated a new IP being in development (with previous rumors pointing towards a smaller experimental title, which may not necessarily be the same project). However, Gears 6 is also reportedly in the works so stay tuned for more details in the coming months.