[PC Games] Explore an anime version of Tokyo in this free Unreal Engine 5 demo

[My baby Sam]

 

(Image credit: Yan Ru)
 

Plenty of games have let us explore a fictionalized slice of Japan's capital city, like Ghostwire: Tokyo, Tokyo Dark, and every mainline game in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. If you'd like to do that without having a videogame get in the way, but not actually leave the house, here's your chance.

 

Anime Tokyo is an art project being made by Yan Ru in Unreal Engine 5 that lets you wander around an animed-up 3D Tokyo. At the moment it contains several city blocks of Shibuya around the 109 department store, which in this reality bears a poster for Project Anime Tokyo rather than an ad for the latest iPhone or whatever, though more areas might be added in the next version of the demo in "several months".

 

As the name suggests, it's a cartoon recreation of the city. Your avatar is a purple-haired girl and, depending which of its three filters you choose, the buildings may be lit up in cherry-blossom pink. (There are also sunny and overcast filters, with rain and snow promised in a future update, and each one starts you in a different place.) It's a relatively underpopulated virtual Tokyo, with rarely more than a handful of people and cars around the Shibuya Scramble at any time, though background noise and music gives the impression of bustle and life. 

 

In some ways it feels more realistic than Ghostwire: Tokyo's Shibuya. Even ignoring the streets full of undead, Ghostwire imagined a tourism-campaign Tokyo where almost every shop sold Japanese items and nobody drank Coke when they could be having a refreshing green tea instead. Anime Tokyo plonks down branches of Starbucks and Adidas as well as ads for brands like Lush and Nike.
 

https://www.pcgamer.com/explore-an-anime-version-of-tokyo-in-this-free-unreal-engine-5-demo/