A YouTube content creator and artist known as Yaroslav Zaytsev has created unique a Western short film called Crossroads using Unreal Engine 5 that showcases the capabilities of the set of tools available. Epic Games unveiled Unreal Engine 5 with a visual spectacle of its own a couple of years ago. As more game developers, filmmakers, and artists have gotten their hands on Unreal Engine 5, an increasing number of projects like Crossroads utilizing the engine have tried to capture the same magic as the PS5 demo.
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Yaroslav Zaytsev’s Unreal Engine 5 clip begins with gunshots ringing through a valley, scaring local wildlife and setting the tension as a cowboy rides through dense woods and across a moonlit bridge. Looking like a Red Dead Redemption Online bounty hunter, the cowboy peers over his shoulder as he’s shot from behind, and in the struggle, he drops a satchel containing two gold bars which he doesn’t stop to collect. The cowboy stumbles to a nearly complete red circle in the dirt path near a tree, quickly finishes the circle, and says, “I just want to live, whatever it takes,” which causes the environment to react.
Two more bullets that surely would have finished the cowboy off are suspended in the air with bright trails behind them in Yaroslav Zaytsev’s Unreal Engine 5 showcase as the tree that resembles one with Druid offerings in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla comes to life in response. As he raises his arms towards the tree, a longhorn skull that’s connected to it lights up and forms a luminous body to walk toward the dying cowboy and an ominous voice says, “it’s settled then.” The fiery longhorn skull looms over the main character of Yaroslav Zaytsev’s Unreal Engine clip as the credits show other artists that helped make Crossroads possible.
The artist’s Crossroads short film has garnered over 600 views within a day and may receive many more given its quality. Yaroslav Zaytsev’s Crossroads joins a growing list of impressive creations using the new Unreal Engine 5, with other well-known projects including The Matrix Awakens demo, Fortnite, and the upcoming Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. Although most responses to Yaroslav Zaytsev’s YouTube video are in Russian, another user celebrated how well done the Unreal Engine showcase is by dubbing it “fire.”
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