Outward UE5 Graphics Overhaul (2026 Photorealistic Edition)

A complete engine-level graphics overhaul for Outward Definitive Edition that transforms lighting, global illumination, shadows, ambient occlusion, color grading, reflections, water, terrain tessellation, foliage, and PBR materials to deliver a 2026 Unreal Engine 5 / Neural-Relit Photorealistic visual pipeline.

Visual Comparisons (Before vs. After)

Interactive Draggable Slider Showcase: Click here to open the live draggable Before/After slider page in your browser

Each comparison below includes an automatic A/B toggle animation (labeled BEFORE: VANILLA OUTWARD vs. AFTER: UE5 2026 OVERHAUL in the top-left corner) followed by side-by-side full-resolution (2560x1440) static screenshots you can click to enlarge.

1. Stormy Sunset, Volumetric Rain Scatter & Stone PBR Relief

Per-pixel HDR sunset scattering through rain, enhanced stone masonry normal relief (+35%), and warm emissive particle bounce.

BEFORE — Vanilla Outward (Click for 1440p)	AFTER — UE5 2026 Overhaul (Click for 1440p)

2. Night Sky, Lighthouse Beacon & Physical HDR Bloom

Natural ACES night sky contrast, volumetric cyan beacon glow on the lighthouse structure, and wide-diffusion physical HDR bloom.

BEFORE — Vanilla Outward (Click for 1440p)	AFTER — UE5 2026 Overhaul (Click for 1440p)

3. Berg Night Courtyard — Warm Lantern Falloff & Cobblestone PBR Relief

Extended 2.0x point-light range and warm radiosity bounce replace vanilla's flat cold wash while bringing out deep cobblestone and woodwork micro-relief.

BEFORE — Vanilla Outward (Click for 1440p)	AFTER — UE5 2026 Overhaul (Click for 1440p)

4. City Alleyway — Extended Light Activation & Dual-Layer AO

Distant streetlamps remain active across the entire street (45m+ activation) while MSVO + SSAO ground stonework and balustrades.

BEFORE — Vanilla Outward (Click for 1440p)	AFTER — UE5 2026 Overhaul (Click for 1440p)

5. Berg Player House Interior — Firepit & Candelabra Multi-Bounce GI

Isolated indoor cubemap reflections and warm fire/candle radiosity bounce across stone masonry, wooden floorboards, and brass fixtures.

BEFORE — Vanilla Outward (Click for 1440p)	AFTER — UE5 2026 Overhaul (Click for 1440p)

Requirements & Dependencies

• Outward Definitive Edition
• BepInExPack Outward (BepInEx-BepInExPack_Outward-5.4.19) — Automatically installed when using r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager.
• (Optional) Outward Config Manager — Fully supported (F5 in-game), in addition to the built-in UE5 Graphics Studio (F10).

In-Game Hotkeys

• F10 — Open/Close the Unreal Engine 5 Graphics Studio live control window (real-time preset switching, FPS/frame-time telemetry, and per-subsystem sliders).
• F11 — Instant A/B Toggle between the active UE5 Overhaul preset and 100% Vanilla Outward visuals in real time.
• F5 — Standard Outward Config Manager menu integration.

Included Visual Presets (Switchable Live via F10)

1. UE5 Photorealistic 2026 (Default) — Neutral AgX/ACES natural daylight & true-to-life indoor candle/torch bounce lighting without artificial oversaturation or over-sharpening.
2. UE5 Cinema (Quality) — Richer atmospheric warmth and deeper cinematic contrast.
3. UE5 Archviz Ultra (600m) — Maximum 600m shadow cascades, 4x LOD bias, and ultra-crisp 1.0px terrain tessellation for high-end GPUs and 4K screenshots.
4. UE5 Balanced (High FPS) — Retains the full Lumen GI, ACES HDR, and PBR material overhaul with lighter screen-space raymarching for high refresh rates.

Core Visual Pillars

1. Lumen Global Illumination & Multi-Bounce Radiosity

• Hemispherical Trilight Sky-Equator-Ground GI: Replaces vanilla Outward's flat uniform ambient light with dynamic physically-based AmbientMode.Trilight driven by Rayleigh sky zenith scatter, horizon solar scatter, and regional/seasonal ground albedo bounce.
• Secondary Solar/Lunar & Indoor Torch Radiosity Bounce: Spawns a dynamic directional bounce light that adapts outdoors to sun/moon terrain bounce and indoors to nearby warm point/spot lights (lanterns, candles, sconces, lava, and magical crystals).
• Extended Local Light Falloff & Distance Activation: Extends indoor and environmental point/spot light ranges (2.0x) and LightQuality activation distances (2.5x) while preserving large environmental lava/volcano lights and soft shadow maps.
• Indoor Reflection & Cubemap Isolation: Automatically attenuates outdoor sky cubemap bleed inside underground city interiors so wood, stone, and pottery react naturally to local candles and fires.

2. Virtual Shadow Maps (VSM) & Dual-Layer Ambient Occlusion

• Uncapped 4-Cascade Shadows: Pushes directional shadow distance up to 380m–600m (ShadowResolution.VeryHigh, ShadowProjection.StableFit) and removes vanilla Outward's 50% shadow distance cutoff on environment geometry.
• 36-Sample Contact Shadows + Day/Night Bug Fix: Upgrades screen-space contact shadows (SEScreenSpaceShadows) for micro-detail grounding on grass, rocks, masonry, and armor crevices, and fixes a vanilla bug where contact shadows stopped updating after day/night transitions.
• Dual-Layer Ambient Occlusion: Combines DX11 Compute Shader Multi-Scale Volumetric Obscurance (MSVO) for wide room/crevice shading with bilateral SSAOPro for tight contact occlusion.

3. ACES Filmic HDR Color Pipeline & Physical Camera

• HDR ACES Filmic Tonemapper: Enables GradingMode.HighDefinitionRange with Tonemapper.ACES and natural photorealistic 3-way Lift/Gamma/Gain color balance.
• Fixed Physical Camera Exposure: Eliminates vanilla auto-exposure brightness pumping/oscillation with stable day/night and indoor/outdoor exposure calibration.
• Dual-Stage Physical HDR Bloom: Smooth wide-diffusion HDR bloom (diffusion = 8.4) paired with subtle lens scatter.
• Safe Subpixel SMAA / Optional TSR: Defaults to flicker-free High SMAA to keep refractive glass/lantern shaders stable on AMD RDNA3 and NVIDIA GPUs, with optional Temporal AA and Dynamic Autofocus Depth of Field toggleable in F10.

4. Volumetric Atmosphere, God Rays, 2K Planar Water & SSR

• Per-Pixel HDR Sky & Clouds: Upgrades TOD_Sky to PerPixel HDR quality with natural Rayleigh/Mie scattering, cloud shadows (TOD_Shadows), and depth-aware volumetric god rays (TOD_Rays).
• 2048x2048 Planar Water & Screen-Space Reflections: Upgrades WaterRender planar reflection and refraction render textures from vanilla 256x256 to 2048x2048 and enables smooth screen-space reflections on wet and metallic surfaces.

5. Nanite-Style LODs, Ultra Foliage & 4K-Grade PBR Material Overhaul

• Nanite-Style LOD & Terrain Tessellation: Raises QualitySettings.lodBias up to 3.6x–4.0x, uncaps camera environment layer culling from 200m to 1600m, and sets terrain heightmapPixelError = 1.0f for maximum geometric fidelity.
• Vegetation Studio Pro & uNature Overhaul: Expands grass, plant, and tree draw distances (320m+) and enables full foliage shadow casting.
• 16x Anisotropic Filtering & Normal Map Relief: Applies 16x anisotropic filtering and -0.50 negative mipmap bias to 3D world textures, boosts normal map 3D relief (_BumpScale, _DetailNormalMapScale) by +35%, and enhances UBER deferred subsurface translucency.

Installation

Recommended: Using r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager

1. Open r2modman (or Thunderstore Mod Manager / Gale) and select Outward Definitive Edition.
2. Find Outward_UE5_Overhaul in the Online tab and click Download (this automatically downloads BepInExPack_Outward if not already installed).
3. Click Start Modded and press F10 in-game to open the UE5 Graphics Studio or F11 to toggle A/B comparison.

Manual Installation

1. Ensure BepInExPack_Outward is installed in your Outward\Outward_Defed folder.
2. Extract the plugins folder from this archive into Outward\Outward_Defed\BepInEx\ (so that OutwardUE5Overhaul.dll is inside BepInEx\plugins\).