School Project / Virtual Reality / Game Development · Team of 3
Reborn After Fear
Unreal Engine 5 — VR Exploration Game
02 — Project Overview
Reborn After Fear is a virtual reality exploration and investigation game developed as a three-person school project using Unreal Engine 5.
The experience follows Samuel, who awakens in a disturbing environment with no memory of what happened to him. As he investigates his surroundings and interacts with key elements, he must uncover the truth behind his situation, confront his fears and face a terrifying reality.
The project focuses on environmental storytelling, exploration and intuitive VR interactions, taking players through distinct environments including a hospital, catacombs and a metro setting.
Developed under the fictional student studio name Némésis, the game required extensive artistic research, environment creation, material development and technical optimization to deliver an immersive experience within the performance limitations of our available hardware.
Software Used
Fictional studio: Némésis
03 — Game Concept
An exploration and investigation experience built around simple movement and interactions with key environmental elements. Players progress by examining their surroundings, discovering clues and gradually unraveling the story.
04 — Game Environments
The experience takes players through a hospital, catacombs and a metro setting. The in-engine captures below show the metro and catacombs environments.
Metro
Catacombs
05 — Art Direction & Visual Development
Moodboards, reference research and hand-drawn level sketches established a coherent identity for the hospital, catacombs and metro environments.
Level Layout Sketches
06 — Assets & Materials
A selection of props and assets modeled, sculpted and textured for the game's environments.
07 — Development & VR Optimization
The project was developed in Unreal Engine 5, with VR integration and testing through SteamVR.
The production combined hard-surface and organic modeling, sculpting, procedural material creation, environment building and visual development.
Performance optimization was a central challenge. Working with limited hardware resources, the team had to carefully balance visual quality and real-time rendering performance to make the experience suitable for virtual reality.
Lumen was explored and used selectively in parts of the project, rather than being applied throughout the entire experience.
Jira and Trello supported task management, production planning and collaboration throughout the development process.
08 — Team & Credits
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