The Matrix Awakens brings the next generation to life: 35,000 humans and millions of polygons

The Game Awards 2021 gala took place last week, a night full of announcements where we got to know The Matrix Awakens, a next-gen experience that was presented live by Keanu Reeves himself to close an event that is more and more known for its surprises than its awards.

The game is now available to download for free on PS5 and Xbox X Series X|S as part of the promotion of the new Matrix movie. Digital Foundry have taken a closer look at it, and it’s certainly left us with some eye-popping details, as well as some completely exorbitant figures.

It has billions of polygonsBest of all, it has billions of polygons to give a hyper-realistic look to both the characters and the scenery. These include more than 7,000 recreated buildings, 17,000 vehicles on the road that can be destroyed and 35,000 pedestrians in a city with almost 10 million unique and duplicated elements.

The city’s surface area extends to almost 16 square kilometres, with a perimeter more than 14 kilometres long. The entire world is illuminated by the sun, the sky and light-emitting materials, and at night almost all the illumination comes from the millions of windows in the buildings.

It’s certainly a technical feat that demonstrates the potential of the Unreal Engine 5 graphics engine, with technologies such as MetaHuman, Nanite and Lumen as the stars of the party. Interestingly, this is the second recent game to be linked to Keanu Reeves, who revealed during the promotion of The Matrix Awakens that he hasn’t played Cyberpunk 2077, something that directly clashes with statements CD Projekt made some time ago.

Source: gamersrd