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> It looks practically photorealistic.

what has improved a lot recently is the physically based rendering - specifically, the lighting. Looking at the steam page, this train game has that type of lighting.

Another game that uses similarly realistic lighting is https://store.steampowered.com/app/2406770/Bodycam/

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When the dev for BodyCam posted his initial streams, I thought it was fake. Also was a solo dev though I think he either has a partner or a team now
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Not to dismiss the effort by dev, but all Unreal engine games look photoreal these days. My point is that photorealism does not show effort these days.
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Most of the review is about the art assets, and I doubt the big ones (e.g. the trains themselves) are off-the-rack Unreal assets. An engine like Unreal 5 will cast your assets in harsh relief. Which is to say, if your game's assets look custom and look good in Unreal 5, it does indeed demonstrate effort and skill.
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It's the lighting etc that provide photo realism with Unreal. Even the demo that comes with Unreal where a robot is running around cubes on a small plain looks photoreal.
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No engine in the world can make bad assets look good.
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Are we talking about train engines or games engines:)
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Eskil Steenberg's LOVE has entered the chat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-A8xvFKaRA

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His Behind the Scenes video for LOVE is one of my favorite developer vids ever.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f90R2taD1WQ

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Oh wow, I didn't know engines provided that much functionality. Thank you.
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