Someone used Unreal Engine 5 to turn Tokyo into a playable anime that you can explore right now

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A freelance artist has managed to build a gorgeous, anime-fied recreation of Tokyo in Unreal Engine 5, and you can play the free demo now.

Yan Ru's Anime Tokyo presents Japan's capital city as we've seen it in countless an anime, and plenty of video games too, just on a much bigger scale. Just off the top of my head, Persona 5 lets you explore a limited number of districts in Tokyo, while the Yakuza series largely takes place in a fictionalized version of Shibuya - called Kamurocho in Ryu Ga Gotoku's absurdist crime drama series - and Akiba's Trip is all about the glorious anime district of Akihabara. But as far as I'm aware, there isn't a game where you can explore the entirety of Tokyo seamlessly - certainly not in Unreal Engine 5 - and that's what makes this tech demo such a novelty.

Having played the demo for a little while, I was impressed by how smoothly it ran on my RTX 3060 laptop. Even at high settings I noticed virtually zero stuttering while I ran and jumped around, took in the familiar sights, and even explored some stairways and hidden paths you wouldn't think you'd be able to explore. The city feels very much alive too, with the overlapping chatter of its people clashing with all sorts of different music and advertisements piping from nearby storefronts - you know, just like the real Tokyo. That said, there are still some work-in-progress areas that can't be explored in the demo.

The demo has three different "modes": sunny, overcast, and "Anime +", which throws a beautiful pinkish blue filter over the presentation. They all look wonderful, and the aforementioned photo mode is great for capturing your favorite scenes.

Yan Ru describes Anime Tokyo as "a new form of game art" and says it was created using Unreal Engine 5 and its Lumen, Nanite, and ray tracing features. It's releasing later this year on Steam, but right now you can download the demo version here.

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After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.