Arm delivers a step-change in mobile gaming with Neural Dawn, showcasing the first use of Arm Neural Technology and Unreal Engine MegaLights on mobile

Developed by Arm and Sumo Digital, Neural Dawn showcases the capabilities of Arm Neural Technology in next-generation Arm Mali GPUs coming to Arm CSS for mobile later this year.

• The project delivers a trailblazing result: as the world’s first mobile game to use Unreal Engine MegaLights, Neural Dawn demonstrates how Arm will deliver a step-change in immersive, desktop-class visuals on mobile while maintaining battery life.
• Launching exclusively on Android devices powered by upcoming Arm Mali GPUs, Neural Dawn highlights how developers can create richer, more cinematic gaming experiences with fewer creative compromises.

By Chris Bergey, Executive Vice President, Edge AI Business Unit, Arm

June 10, 2026 -- The mobile gaming industry continues to thrive, and the race is on for OEMs and games studios to retain engaged players for longer game sessions. At the same time, player expectation is rising, as they look for new, more immersive gameplay. This represents a crunch point: how do we provide truly dynamic, cinematic experiences within the power limitations of mobile, which historically have hindered artistic vision.

Today Arm is breaking new ground showing that this is now possible with Neural Dawn, a mobile game which demonstrates the capabilities of Arm Neural Technology in a real production workflow. Created with games studio Sumo Digital, Neural Dawn shows how neural graphics enable developers to deliver real-time cinematic lighting techniques like Unreal Engine MegaLights, ray-traced effects, and high-quality frame delivery within a mobile power envelope.

Set for release later in 2026, Neural Dawn serves as a practical demonstration of how neural graphics can be integrated into modern game development pipelines. With 120 minutes of gameplay and four levels, it follows a research scientist within a cave network who is guided by light to uncover the truth behind a collapsing civilization, the head scientist’s hidden plan, and their own connection to it. Lighting is central to both the art direction and gameplay; when players see light, it signals interactivity and guides exploration.

“Our collaboration with Arm proves that Neural Technology can make a significant difference to what’s possible in mobile gaming. By using Arm Neural Technologies in Neural Dawn, Sumo Digital could bank a key power saving, enabling us to increase game session length and deliver a fundamental step-change in the experience we can deliver to players by switching on both MegaLights and ray tracing; features that remain rare in console gaming, let alone on mobile. This is a huge cultural shift in how game studios will build games, no longer held back by traditional mobile constraints.” Gary Dunn, Co-CEO and COO, Sumo Digital

How Arm Neural Technology unlocks desktop-class graphics on mobile

The most fundamental blocker to providing cinematic experiences on mobile is power constraints. Both OEMs and players desire experiences that will not significantly impact the performance, heat and battery life of mobile devices.

At Arm, we believe AI will fundamentally reshape the graphics pipeline. The future of mobile graphics will not be defined solely by faster GPUs, but by the ability to combine graphics and neural compute to deliver richer experiences within a fixed power budget. That’s why Arm is investing in Neural Technology and bringing dedicated neural accelerators into future Arm Mali GPUs coming to Arm CSS for mobile later this year: to enable a new generation of AI-powered graphics experiences that were previously impractical on mobile devices.

Arm Neural Technology creates higher-quality experiences within a mobile power envelope, helping remove some of the longstanding barriers between mobile and desktop gaming. Neural Dawn uses Neural Technologies – Neural Super Sampling and Denoising (NSSD) and Neural Frame Rate Upscaling (NFRU) – to reduce rendering costs and free more performance for richer scenes, more dynamic lighting, and smoother motion.

Bringing Unreal Engine MegaLights to mobile

Neural Dawn, which is built using Unreal Engine 5.6.1, is the first mobile game to use Unreal Engine MegaLights, showing how developers can bring complex direct lighting and ray-traced shadows to mobile devices. MegaLights enables large numbers of dynamic lights in a scene, giving artists more creative control and allowing lighting to become part of the storytelling and gameplay rather than a static background element. Artists can now see final lighting faster and make decisions earlier, reducing the need for long pre-baked cycles. It also means fewer creative compromises when building more ambitious mobile games.

This level of lighting on mobile has historically carried a high performance and power cost. Arm Neural Technology helps offset that cost by reducing the workload required to produce high-quality images and smooth motion. This enables advanced real-time, ray-traced lighting within the power constraints of a mobile platform.

Developers can access these capabilities through Arm’s Unreal Engine plug-ins, providing a “plug-and-play” integration within existing development workflows, rather than requiring custom rendering pipelines or extensive manual optimization.

For players, this unlocks new storytelling experiences where virtual worlds now can feel more alive and responsive. Lighting becomes an outstanding part of the mobile gameplay experience, helping guide exploration, create atmosphere, and shape storytelling in ways that were previously out of reach on mobile. Players have less battery life frustrations too, as Neural Technologies enable longer, more immersive play with smoother delivery and greater power efficiency.

Enabling developers to build next-generation mobile games today

With Neural Dawn, Arm is taking an active role in helping developers awaken the next generation of mobile gaming experiences and accelerate adoption of advanced graphics and AI technologies across the ecosystem. The game – which will be launched exclusively on Android devices powered by upcoming Arm Mali GPUs – is one tangible demonstration of how AI can become part of the core experience, helping unlock new levels of visual quality, performance, and efficiency on future mobile devices.

Neural Dawn was developed using standard industry tools and workflows that developers can follow, giving a realistic view of how neural graphics can fit into existing game production. A small team of 17 people at Sumo Digital built the game in 18 months from pre-production to delivery, using workflows that mirror what developers will use as the Arm Neural Graphics Development Kit evolves. This matters because developer adoption depends on practical workflows that fit naturally into existing game production, reducing manual optimization, and shortening iteration cycles for artists and engineers.

Arm is taking learnings from Neural Dawn and sharing practical guidance on how to implement neural graphics into games through the new Arm Neural Technology Playbook, with the first edition available now. In July, Arm will update the Neural Graphics Development Kit to include NFRU resources and upgrade existing NSS resources to give developers more options for balancing image quality, cost and performance. Developers can sign up for Early Access now to get the resources ahead of general availability.

A new class of mobile gaming

Neural Dawn demonstrates the future possibilities for mobile gaming, where Neural Technologies and neural accelerators bridge the gap between the visual ambition of desktop and console gaming and the power constraints of mobile devices. Developers can build richer, more cinematic worlds with fewer creative compromises, while players benefit from more immersive gameplay. By bringing Neural Technology into real-world mobile development today, Arm is helping usher in desktop-quality mobile gaming experiences that will be powered by next generation Arm Mali GPUs in Arm CSS for mobile later this year.