For years, Unity and Unreal have ruled the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70 % of all titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has gained traction and a handful of studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a notable example—the market has largely settled into a duopoly. Yet three seasoned veterans, Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient, have founded Immens with the conviction that there is still room for a fresh, more adaptable engine.
Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of the industry: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that the timing is now right for a new platform that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. “With AI‑assisted programming, you can start building from the ground up again,” he explained.
“Guided by intelligent tools, you can achieve full‑functionality much faster than before.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, is quick to clarify that the AI component is not about magical prompts that conjure assets out of thin air. Instead, the technology is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he said. “If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom systems—say, a bespoke particle effect—without being constrained to a limited scripting layer.” This extensibility, he believes, will let creators iterate and expand the engine at a pace previously reserved for large studios.
The motivation behind Immens is rooted in the current economic realities of game development. Brussee describes the environment as “rough,” noting that production costs keep climbing and that many studios struggle to stay afloat. “We need new ways of working that lower budgets, shrink team sizes, and accelerate timelines,” he argued. “Otherwise, you’re risking your livelihood and the future of your studio.” De Jong, the company’s chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has provided a solid technical foundation, it also stifles innovation. “The industry faces a host of challenges, and simply repeating the old playbook won’t cut it,” he said. “We need genuine innovation, not just more of the same.” One of the pain points he highlights is the monolithic nature of existing engines, which force developers to adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines.
With AI, Immens aims to flip that script, offering an engine that molds itself to the developer’s workflow. Flexibility is a core design principle.
De Jong envisions a system where users can swap, append, or modify components at will, crafting bespoke tools that match their personal habits and project requirements. “I can build an interface with exactly the shortcuts, features, and layout my team needs,” he said.
“The engine should be a canvas, not a cage.” Valient also warns that AI, while powerful, can misbehave if left unchecked. Immens therefore emphasizes transparency and control: users can trace the engine’s decisions, review its history, and ensure reproducibility.
This level of oversight, he argues, turns AI from a mysterious black box into a reliable assistant. For example, generating five characters with specific traits used to take weeks of manual work; now, a developer could sketch the idea over coffee, let the AI handle the heavy lifting, and reuse the generated tool as many times as needed.
Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow. De Jong stresses that the framework is deliberately agnostic, allowing teams to decide how much AI to incorporate and where. “We want the architecture to be open enough that you can pick and choose the AI components that make sense for your pipeline,” he explained.
Interoperability is another pillar of the project. By adopting open, text‑based standards, Immens ensures that assets from tools like Blender, Maya, or other generative applications can be read and manipulated directly by the engine. “When files are human‑readable, any system can parse them,” Brussee noted.
“That opens the door to smarter, more fluid interfaces across the entire toolchain.” The broader conversation about AI in games is often polarized. Some commentators predict a future where a simple prompt can spawn a Grand‑Theft‑Auto‑scale experience, fueling fears of “click‑to‑game” shortcuts. Immens’s founders acknowledge that such extremes may eventually be possible, but they view AI primarily as an enhancer, not a replacement. “AI will make every creator better,” Valient said.
“It carries negative connotations now because it’s disrupting the status quo at an unprecedented scale.” Economic concerns also linger, especially the fear that AI‑related ventures are a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: while many companies vanished, the underlying internet persisted and flourished.
“We’re focused on building a genuinely good engine. AI just accelerates our ability to dream bigger and ship faster,” he asserted. Whether the market is overheated remains uncertain, but Immens is betting on lasting value rather than hype. Funding details are still under wraps.
The trio has secured initial commitments but has not disclosed the exact amount, describing it as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑capitalization, noting that too much cash can breed complacency. “Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. “If you have a million‑person team, you won’t get anything done.” Immens remains a lean operation: the three founders plus a handful of helpers. This small size is intentional, allowing rapid decision‑making while avoiding the bureaucracy that can slow larger teams.
De Jong explains the balancing act: “Building an engine is complex, but you can’t just throw a massive workforce at it. You need a focused group to iterate, learn, and make hard choices.” At the same time, they must scale enough to capture the window of opportunity presented by AI’s rise. The team is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release later this month.
Brussee admits that their original timeline—targeting the end of the year—has been cut in half, underscoring the speed gains they claim AI can deliver. Business‑model discussions are still early.
While Immens admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy, they have not committed to any specific approach yet. Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower creators to push the medium forward, fostering more artistic risk‑taking and innovation. “We love games and want to see more daring, expressive experiences,” Brussee concluded. “If our technology can help make that happen, that would be amazing."