Now here is something that completely passed under my radar. In 2025, Accidental Studios released a demo for its upcoming psychological horror game, Subliminal. And, as you will see in the video featured below, this is one of the most photorealistic games using Unreal Engine 5.
Subliminal is a psychological horror game inspired by the Backrooms urban legend. It aims to use cutting-edge lighting and graphics to look as real as possible. The game includes hand-made, open levels, puzzles that use light and perspective, nostalgic locations, strange creatures, and an ongoing uneasy feeling that something is wrong.
As the title suggests, this is one of the most photorealistic games I’ve seen in Unreal Engine 5. Don’t believe me? Well, watch the following video. The lighting and all the materials look incredible. This could have easily passed as live-action footage when viewed on a phone.
Accidental Studios is using both Lumen and Nanite to create Subliminal. Moreover, Subliminal shows why a lot of devs have decided to use Unreal Engine 5 in their games. A lot of people have criticized the engine as some UE5 games run poorly. However, UE5 is so powerful that it can allow small studios to create games that can look THIS good. A game looking like this from a small team wouldn’t have been possible in most other engines.
So, what is Subliminal? It’s a psychological horror game with hand-made, open levels and puzzles that use light and perspective. In this game, light is like a real object you can control. You can pick up lights from ceilings, shine them to open doors, and use them to reveal new paths that look impossible to reach.
The puzzles in Subliminal focus on changing perspective and light. If you change the lighting in an area, the whole space can shift. But if you place a light in the wrong spot, you might have to start over. Every object you move, and every shadow you create, affects what is real and what is not.
In Subliminal, the scary moments come from your own mind. Some things in the game can sense when you move or when you hesitate. If you take too long to solve an important puzzle, you might start to feel the world closing in on you, making the experience even more intense and frightening.
Every space you enter in Subliminal is a fragment of a memory. Discover the secrets of basements, water parks, play places, and more. Each location tells a part of your story. As you explore, the environment becomes puzzling and less stable. You may see things that do not exist, hear sounds that are not really there, and feel things that make the hairs of your neck stand up.
Subliminal: Episode 1 will come out in March 2026. Those interested can also download its playable demo from Steam.
Have fun!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email