Squirrels with guns: the Unreal Engine 5 tech demo you didn’t know you needed

Just when we thought we had seen it all, someone has gone ahead and flipped our world upside down using Unreal Engine 5. How’d they do it? Well, they made a UE5 demo initially featuring a cute squirrel running around minding their own business. However, it’s when the squirrel picks up a gun that we were truly won over.

First off we’re treated with our furry friend wrapping their hands around a pistol grip as they carry the loaded sidearm around the little sandbox made for them. Their tiny hands can barely reach the trigger, so we don’t see them let loose any shots. That being said, we do see them run around on their back legs whilst keeping it upright in comedic fashion.

The video really comes into its own when they grab a Mac 10 submachine gun though, as they leap into the air and use the rapid fire to propel themselves upwards. Look, we know everyone is looking at cool Unreal Engine 5 demos and screaming “wow, they should make this into a full game!” but c'mon now, this one surely deserves it. You can check out the video below and you’ll see what we mean.

Looking past the obvious appeal, it is worth stating that the fur effect on that squirrel does look pretty lush. Before any of the firearms nonsense starts we can see the camera pan right up close and you can really see a huge amount of detail in the texture work. It’s impressive stuff!

We’ve covered a range of impressive Unreal Engine 5 projects on this site, ranging from some brilliant fan projects as well as future AAA games in development, but these totally original little demos do a great job of showing what those with a bit of creativity and development know how can bring out from the latest tech.

If you’re curious about more Unreal Engine 5 news, check out our recent coverage of this excellent Need for Speed fan project, as well as The Coalition moving onto future projects using Unreal Engine 5.