The Original 1995 Unreal Engine Demo Shows How Far We've Come

Lately, we’ve all been dazzled by the divine power that is Unreal Engine 5. The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience was our first glimpse at what UE5 was capable of but since then, fans have used the engine to dream up their own visions of the future of gaming.

Both Superman and Spider-Man have made their way to free-to-download UE5 fan projects and they look incredible. A fan-made mock-up trailer for a UE5 remake of The Last of Us also recently appeared online and it's everything we’d like to see in the rumoured Naughty Dog official remake. UE5 may be the epitome of photorealism but the Unreal Engine has humble origins.

If you missed it, take a look at The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience below.

YouTuber Cycu1 recently unearthed and shared the demo for 1995’s original Unreal Engine, and it shows what a journey we’ve been on when it comes to video game graphics. The demo isn’t compatible with Windows 10 or 11 so Cycu1 ran the project using Windows XP compatibility mode and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080. The age of the demo caused a few stability and frame rate issues but that being said, the clip looks great and brought the nostalgia out in full force.

The footage sees the player navigate a series of mediaeval-looking rooms and corridors, complete with bricked walls and lit by wall-mounted torches. The footage of the first-person shooter eventually went on to become 1998’s Unreal. Developed by Epic MegaGames and Digital Extremes, Unreal was released to PC. The original Unreal Engine would later be used during the production of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Deus Ex, and The Wheel of Time.

Compared to what we’re now used to in terms of graphics, the 1995 Unreal Engine demo looks incredibly dated but there’s also something quite magic about it. It’s important to take note of the history of video games, and there was something quite comforting about the simplicity of gaming’s early years.