The best Unreal Engine 5 games demonstrate why Epic Games’ real-time digital creation platform has become so popular among devs big and small. Many of the best UE5 games showcase the engine’s ability to achieve impressively detailed 3D realism through its powerful physically-based rendering and features like Nanite virtualized geometry and Lumen dynamic global illumination.
Unreal Engine is free to use until your game makes over $1 million, which has led some of the best indie devs to use the platform to achieve high-end graphics that would previously have been impossible with a small team. See our piece what is Unreal Engine 5? to learn more about how the software is being used in other fields as well as in game design, and see our guide to the best game development software for alternatives.
The best Unreal Engine 5 games out now
Whether you’re thinking about making a game in Unreal Engine 5 yourself and want some inspiration, or you just want some ideas for what to play next, I’ve picked out an entirely subjective list of the best Unreal Engine 5 games so far. We’ve reviewed many of them on the site and interviewed developers about how they used Unreal Engine 5 to make the games.
Clair Obscur Expedition 33
- Developer: Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher: Kepler Interactive
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
At the top of my list of the best Unreal Engine 5 games is Sandfall’s outlandish, visually spectacular role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Made by a relatively small team over five years, it stands out for its engaging plot, convincing performances and interesting combat system. I also love Clair Obscur’s unwillingness to get bogged down in explaining the lore. By holding back on answers, it allows players to fill in the blanks.
As we noted in our Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review, it feels like the artists were given free rein on this game. The fact such surreal concepts as an island made of faces and a coral reef in the air feel convincing is testament to how Unreal Engine can allow developers to let their imaginations run wild and create realistic-looking fantasy worlds.
In our interview, Sandfall Interactive co-founder Tom Guillermin told us that switching from Unreal Engine 4 to UE5 had allowed the game to punch above its weight, with Metahuman easing a lot of pain points around character creation.
Silent Hill 2
- Developer: Blooper Team
- Publisher: Konami
- Platform: PS5, Windows
This Silent Hill 2 remake by Blooper Team tops our list of the best Unreal Engine 5 remakes for good reason since it allows this classic to retain its title as the best horror game of all time even today. The environmental design is gorgeously atmospheric, and the new closer over-the-shoulder camera angle makes the game feeling even more immersive.
In our Silent Hill 2 review, we found the makeover to be a genuinely additive that offers a fresh perspective on the game’s worlds. The camera is closer to the action, making the game feel more immersive and claustrophobic, while the layout feels faithful enough to the original but with the rich detail that’s possible with Unreal Engine 5.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
- Developer: Ninja Theory
- Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 set a new visual standard with its outstanding colour, cinematic cut scenes, and long continuous shots of immersive combat (with some mercilessly realistic animations!).
Narratively, it’s very different from the original, building on the cast and adding giants from Norse myth. Ninja Theory’s VFX director Mark Slater-Tunstill and environment art director Dan Attwell told us in our interview on the making of Hellblade 2 that their aim was not simply “pure realism” but “cinematic realism”, and that’s apparent in everything from the wider aspect ratio to the anamorphic lens with barrel distortion, correct depth of field and lens flares
The picture distorts and becomes specked with artefacts as you explore the landscape, and the camera zooms, pans and rolls in fights. Inspired by Game of Thrones, the combat is realistic, violent but oddly intimate.
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
- Developer: Leenzee
- Publisher: 505 Games
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
As we said in our Wuchang: Fallen Feathers review, the game hardly reinvents the Soulslike genre, but its visually stunning world showcases Unreal Engine’s graphics power at its best. There’s remarkable artistry and attention to detail in the recreation of a Ming Dynasty setting drenched in Chinese folklore, with immersive fog-covered villages, burning temples.
The fluid combat and gruesome boss battles will appeal to Soulsborne lovers, but there’s enough beauty in the environment alone to make the game enjoyable even for those who aren’t fans of the genre.
The Midnight Walk
- Developer: MoonHood
- Publisher: Fast Travel Games
- Platform: PS5, Windows
This stop-motion horror game has a very different art style from the other titles in our pick of the best Unreal Engine 5 games. That’s because what you see actually physically exists – it was all made from clay and various found objects.
As we noted in our Midnight Walk review, playing this game is like stepping into a Studio Laika animation. Moonhood’s Klaus Lyngeled and Olov Redman 3D scanned hundreds of hand-crafted models to make it, with Klaus turning his hobby for 3D modelling into a game.
The art style creates a distinctly cosy and handmade feel, while the game’s also highly innovative, with the clever mechanic of being able to close your eyes to make the monsters go away in the VR version. This beautiful game shows that Unreal Engine 5 isn’t just for the 3D realism it’s most known for.
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl
- Developer / publisher: GSC Game World
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
In our Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review, we described GSC Game World’s title as a “gloriously gloomy use of Unreal Engine 5”, praising the beautiful open world and proper survival design. More than a game, it’s a full-blown cultural artifact, our reviewer concluded, and very timely given the conflict in Ukraine that held up its development.
This modern-tech sequel to the original blends FPS and survival mechanics with horror elements that make it feel a little like Metro meets Fallout. It still has a sci-fi element, with mutant wildlife and humanoids. Moving to Unreal Engine 5 helped make the game feasible, and there’s so much richness and variety in the game’s art that each its 20 regions could be a game in itself.
Still Wakes the Deep
- Developer: The Chinese Room
- Publisher: Secret Mode
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
Unreal Engine 5 does wonders for atmospheric horror, and Still Wakes the Deep is another fine example. It’s wonderfully eerie with its mix of Lovecraft meets body horror amid the claustrophobic setting of an oil rig in the 1970s. It’s tense and unnerving, with a very effective sense of place.
As associate art director Laura Dodds and principal environment artist Dominique Buttiens told us in an interview, Unreal Engine 5 helped them nail the aesthetic, particularly given the importance to two essential aspects in the game: natural lighting and water – the latter in both in liquid form and vapour.
Lumen, UE5’s global illumination and reflections system, provided realistic ambient light and bounce light for the style of naturalism they were going for, while the convincingly thick and viscous water was the result of being able to use “so much cutting edge tech” to create “real time flooded environments” with realistic swells, eddies and flow dynamics. All combines for a game that feels as scary as it really would being on a rig in the North Sea.
- Developer / publisher: Konami
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
I might be a bit rash including this on my list before playing it, but Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater looks like it’s going to be a good example of how Unreal Engine 5 can be used to modernise classic games, respecting the original while taking advantage of advances in graphics.
Some have suggested that it might be a little too faithful to the original, and that the use of the same animations clashes with the more detailed models, but I think the characters in particular are a great showcase for UE5. The remake also seems to confirm Konami’s move from its proprietary engine to Unreal Engine 5, and that’s a strong commendation for Epic’s platform.
With an August 28 release date, we’ll soon see if our impressions are confirmed.
The best Unreal Engine games coming soon
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra
- Developer / publisher: Skydance
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
Coming in 2026, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra looks set to be an interesting linear single-player, story focused action game. It will see Captain America form an uneasy alliance with Black Panther as they attempt to prevent the rise of the terrorist organisation Hydra. I’m hoping for a visually impressive game with a strong original story and lots of set pieces.
Silent Hill f
- Developer: NeoBards Entertainment
- Publisher: Konami
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows
Silent Hill f is the eighth mainline game in the Silent Hill franchise. Taking place in a fictional town in Japan in the 1960s, it departs from the more westernised entries in the series, following school student Hinako Shimizu as she explores the fog-covered town, fights monsters and solves puzzles.
Konami says the game is built around the Japanese horror concept of “finding the terror in beauty”, and writer Ryukishi07, known for the visual novel Higurashi When They Cry, sounds like a great choice to capture that. There’s been a lot of speculation about the ‘f’ stands for (flora, forma, five, first, fu? We don’t have much longer to wait because it’s set for a 25 September 2025 release.
Gears of War: E-Day
- Developer: The Coalition, People Can Fly
- Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
- Platform: Xbox Series X / S, Windows
Another new Unreal Engine 5 game to list for 2026, Gears of War E-Day is a first-person shooter set 14 years before the events of the original game, which should provide plenty of opportunity to flesh out the backstory and worldbuilding. It seems like this might be one of those occasions when a studio delivers what fans were asking for.
The Witcher 4
- Developer / publisher: CD Projekt RED
- Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X / S, Windows, GeForce Now
Epic used The Witcher 4 for its Unreal Engine 5.6 tech demo released at Unreal Fest in June, so it had better be a great showcase for the platform. Obviously the game’s not going to have the richness of the demo, but I’m hopeful that the world will feel very real – like a place that exists beyond the game rather than for the game, and characters should be very well written.
We’ve got a long time to wait, though. The Witcher 4 won’t be released until at least 2027.
Unrecord
- Developer: DRAMA
- Platform: Windows
I’m including Unrecord as the final entry on this pick of the best Unreal Engine games for how it shows Unreal Engine’s capabilities for 3D realism (also see our guide to video game art styles). There’s still no release data at the time of writing, but infamously the game looks so real that Developers DRAMA were accused of faking gameplay footage back in 2023.
It’s a narrative-driven first-person shooter tactical police officer via bodycam, footage. The lighting, sound, detailed environments and subtlety in the movements all make it feel shocking realistic, even compared against other UE5 games.
Have we missed your favourite? Let me know in the comments what you think is the best Unreal Engine 5 game so far, and which you’re looking forward to.
Looking for more gaming inspiration? See our pick of the best Switch 2 games. We also have a guide to Switch 2 prices, or you can check for deals below.
