The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is free on PS5 and Xbox Series

Director Lana Wachowski‘s The Matrix Resurrections is scheduled to reach theatres and the HBO Max streaming service on December 22, and to help us get through the last week of waiting to see the movie, Wachowski has another piece of Matrix entertainment for us: The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience is now free for any PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series players to download and check out.

Also known as The Matrix – The Awakening: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience (according to the PlayStation store), this is

an innovative free, open-world cinematic and technology demo that combines the power of PlayStation®5 with UE5.

This technology demonstration, an original concept written and cinematographically directed by Lana Wachowski and James McTeigue, features the performances of Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss re-enacting their roles of Neo and Trinity at the same time (in a blend of real and real unreal), acting as themselves.

Many members of the original film’s visual effects team came together again to prepare the digital execution of this experience, including John Gaeta, Kim Libreri, Jerome Platteaux, George Borshukov and Michael Gay, in collaboration with teams at Epic Games and partners like SideFX, Evil Eye Pictures, WetaFX (formerly Weta Digital) and many others.

This demo ranges from breathtaking realistic cinematics to a fast-paced third-person shooting experience, complemented by an action-packed car chase sequence, and offers a rich and detailed open world to explore set in the universe. ‘from the Matrix’.

Download now to experience the future of interactive storytelling and entertainment with UE5.

You can check out one person’s experience with the demo in the video embedded above.

Directed by Lana Wachowski from a screenplay she wrote with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell, The Matrix Resurrections has the following synopsis:

Return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. And if Thomas…Neo…has learned anything, it’s that choice, while an illusion, is still the only way out of—or into—the Matrix. Of course, Neo already knows what he has to do. But what he doesn’t yet know is the Matrix is stronger, more secure and more dangerous than ever before. Déjà vu.

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are joined in the cast by fellow returning stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Daniel Bernhardt. The franchise newcomers include Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Christina Ricci, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Eréndira Ibarra, Jonathan Groff, Andrew Caldwell, Ellen Hollman, Brian J. Smith, Max Riemelt, and Chris Sean Reid.

Wachowski, Grant Hill, and James McTeigue produced The Matrix Resurrections, while Terry Needham, Garrett Grant, and Bruce Berman serve as executive producers.