Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), developed by Epic Games, is the game engine powering Varsapura. This is miHoYo's first game built outside of Unity. Every previous HoYoverse title, including Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero, used the Unity engine. The switch to UE5 enables the photorealistic visual direction that sets Varsapura apart from miHoYo's anime-styled catalog.
Why the engine switch matters
Unity and Unreal Engine 5 have different strengths. Unity excels at cross-platform deployment, especially mobile, and supports the cel-shaded rendering miHoYo's previous games rely on. UE5 is built for high-fidelity rendering with physically based materials, real-time global illumination, and detailed geometry at scale. Choosing UE5 signals that Varsapura is targeting visual fidelity over broad device compatibility.
The switch also means miHoYo's engineering teams had to learn a new toolchain, new scripting languages (C++ and Blueprints instead of C#), and new asset pipelines. This is a non-trivial organizational investment and explains, in part, why the Development History includes a failed first attempt with Project SH.
Key UE5 features visible in the demo
The 31-minute gameplay demonstration, captured on an NVIDIA RTX 4090, showed several UE5 technologies in action:
Feature | Description |
|---|---|
Nanite | (virtualized geometry) allows the City of Rain's dense urban environment to display extremely high polygon counts without manual level-of-detail optimization. Buildings, street furniture, and environmental details maintain sharpness at all viewing distances. |
Lumen | (global illumination) provides real-time indirect lighting. Neon signs bounce colored light onto wet streets, interior rooms receive light from windows naturally, and shadows react dynamically to moving light sources. This is the system behind the atmospheric rain-soaked look. |
Ray-traced reflections | on wet road surfaces, puddles, and glass windows. The perpetual rain in the City of Rain means nearly every surface is wet, making reflections a constant and visually prominent effect. |
Volumetric rain | where individual raindrops scatter light and interact with the environment. Rain streaks on windows, mist rising from pavement, and water running in gutters all contribute to the feeling of a city under constant downpour. |
Physically based material rendering | gives surfaces like concrete, metal, fabric, and skin realistic responses to lighting conditions. Characters and objects look grounded in the environment rather than painted on top of it. |
Performance considerations
The demo was captured on an NVIDIA RTX 4090, a high-end GPU. This raises questions about what hardware Varsapura will require at launch. UE5 games like Alan Wake 2 and Black Myth: Wukong have been demanding on consumer hardware, particularly when ray tracing is enabled. miHoYo has not announced minimum or recommended system requirements.
Whether Varsapura will include scalable quality settings, DLSS/FSR upscaling support, or lower-fidelity modes for older hardware is unknown. The Platforms and Release article covers expected platform targets.
Art direction: photorealism vs. anime
The most visible consequence of the UE5 switch is the art style. miHoYo's previous games used anime-inspired, cel-shaded character models with exaggerated proportions and clean linework. Varsapura targets photorealism. Environments, weather, and lighting look like a high-end cinematic film.
Character models sit in an unusual middle ground. The body proportions, clothing, and skin rendering are realistic, but the eyes are slightly larger than anatomically accurate, retaining a subtle anime influence. This blend received mixed reactions when the demo was shown. Some viewers found it striking, while others described it as uncanny. It is likely an area that will see refinement before release.
UE5 in the broader context
Unreal Engine 5 launched in April 2022 and has been adopted by a growing number of AAA studios. Notable UE5 titles include Fortnite (which migrated from UE4), Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Black Myth: Wukong, and the upcoming The Witcher 4. Varsapura is one of the first Chinese-developed AAA titles to use UE5, which gives miHoYo both an opportunity (cutting-edge visuals) and a risk (less institutional experience with the engine compared to Unity).