This Unreal Engine 5 Demo Showcases What An Open-World Superman Game Could Look Like

Unreal Engine 5 is already being used to show how amazing the foreseeable future games could look. And this demo is no exception.

(Photo : YouTube - Unreal Engine)
unreal engine 5

For this one, developer Tyson Butler-Boschma uses the Matrix Awakens UE5 demo to create what could be the closest approximation of an open-world Superman game. According to WCCFTech, Butler-Boschma created it using the same exact city in the Matrix Awakens demo and a flying superhero character. It's not Supes himself for legal reasons, but it sure does look like him.

What's even better is that the demo is playable if you want to try it out - and have the hardware to do so. You can download it from the developer's itch.io page, though it seems to be only available for PC (sorry, console owners).

Here's a video of the Unreal Engine 5 demo in action:

As you can see there, our Superman stand-in flies around the city in a very seamless manner. There seems to be an indication that players could control the character's flight by moving the mouse, as seen by the arrow cursor present.

Furthermore, the flying is also complete with the appropriate wind, sound, and visual cues to make players "feel" the speed of the character as he flies through the world.

This is perhaps the closest that anyone has gotten to making an open-world Superman game. That's because there's been a considerable lack of games featuring DC's mighty son of Krypton. Sure, there have been so many Batman games, but there's still no video game adventure for Kal-El - at least none yet.

For now, this seems to be a more fully realized version of another Unreal Engine 5 demo created by a different developer, which was shared earlier this month:

The #UE5 CitySample told me that it wants to turn into a #Superman game when it grows up...#IndieGameDev #gamedev #games pic.twitter.com/7BwAOt3KVF
— 𝕧𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕕▿ (@volodXYZ) April 6, 2022

The only difference is that this earlier demo uses a stock, poseable figure-like character instead of a superhero-looking one.

Why Have There Never Been Any Superman Games?

Perhaps the arrival of Epic Games' new engine is the one catalyst for the world's first open-world Supes game. That's because technological limitations have proven to be the Achilles heel for such a game in the past, leading to several big projects featuring DC's golden boy getting canceled.

(Photo : Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
An original Superman cape worn by actor Christopher Reeve in the 1978 "Superman" film (estimate $100,000 -2000,000 $ USD) is displayed at Julien's Auctions house on December 13, 2019 ahead of Julien's Icons & Idols: Hollywood Auction which takes place on December 16, 2019.

According to Tech Times, Warner Bros tried to make an open-world Superman title way back in 2013. It was said to be DC's answer to Marvel's Spider-Man PS4 while also taking some cues from how Insomniac Games recreated Spidey's NYC open-world.

Another canceled Supes game called Superman Unbound was pitched in 2014 after Warner Bros canceled their project. Unbound was reportedly set not in Metropolis but in Kal-El's homeworld of Krypton. And the reason it was canceled was that Superman's powers were "too much" for Rocksteady's Batman Arkham engine to handle, which the developers planned to use.

While it proved perfectly fine for the caped crusader, it was too underpowered for the otherworldly powers of Superman, according to YouTuber MathChief: