For many years, the game‑development landscape has been dominated by two heavyweight engines: Unity and Unreal. In fact, by 2025 those platforms powered roughly 70 % of every title that appeared on Steam. While open‑source alternatives like Godot have begun to gain traction, the market remains largely locked into the proprietary offerings of the big players, with companies such as Capcom still relying on in‑house solutions like the RE Engine.
Against this backdrop, three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have decided to launch a new contender: Immens, an AI‑enhanced game engine designed to give smaller teams a viable, cost‑effective path to creating high‑quality games. The trio’s résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development.
Brussee cut his teeth at Epic Games, the creator of Unreal, and later helped shape titles at Guerrilla Games and Boss Key. De Jong has spent years engineering tools for Apple and other leading studios, while Valient brings deep technical expertise from his time at several AAA developers.
Their combined experience gives them a unique perspective on why the current engine ecosystem feels stale and why a fresh approach is overdue. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because “the landscape has changed in ways that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.” He believes AI‑assisted programming now makes it possible to start building an engine from the ground up without the massive overhead that historically accompanied such an undertaking. “With a lot of guidance and control, you can assemble something that delivers full functionality quickly,” he said.
Valient, who serves as Immens’s chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are leveraging is not the kind of generative, prompt‑driven magic that dominates headlines. Instead, their AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he explained. “If we design the underlying system with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom features—like a bespoke particle system—without being confined to a limited scripting layer.” This philosophy aims to let creators extend the engine at a deeper level, accelerating iteration and reducing the need for workarounds.
The motivation behind Immens is also rooted in the harsh economic realities of modern game production. Brussee described the current climate as “rough,” noting that development costs keep climbing while budgets shrink. “It’s becoming harder to succeed,” he warned. “We need new ways of working that lower risk, shrink team size, and speed up delivery, so studios don’t gamble their entire livelihood on a single title.” De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, echoed this sentiment, observing that the engine market has entered a phase of “standardisation and consolidation.” While that has produced stable foundations, it has also stifled innovation.
“The industry now faces a suite of challenges, and simply repeating the old formula won’t cut it,” he said. “We need genuine innovation, not just more of the same.” One of the pain points De Jong highlighted in existing engines is their monolithic nature. Developers often have to bend their workflows to fit proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines.
By contrast, an AI‑aware engine could adapt to the developer’s preferred tools and formats. “Flexibility is key,” he argued. “You should be able to swap components, append new modules, or craft entirely custom tools that match your personal workflow—down to the exact shortcuts, UI layout, and feature set you need for a particular project.” Valient cautioned that AI, while powerful, can also behave unpredictably if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immens is being built with transparency and user control at its core.
“When you use the engine, you always know what it’s doing and why,” he said. “You can trace the history of any operation, ensure repeatability, and create bespoke utilities that solve very specific problems—like generating five characters with a particular trait in minutes instead of weeks.” This level of control, he believes, turns AI from a black‑box into a reliable assistant.
Immens’s design philosophy deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow on its users. De Jong emphasized that the framework and architecture are intended to be neutral, allowing developers to decide how much AI to incorporate and where.
“We want the engine to be a canvas, not a script,” he noted, adding that ensuring the AI interprets instructions correctly is an ongoing technical challenge. Interoperability is another cornerstone of the project.
By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, Immens aims to speak the same language as popular tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. “If the files are plain text, any system can read them,” Brussee explained. “That means the AI can ingest and manipulate assets directly, and you can plug in third‑party software without fighting proprietary barriers. It’s about creating a smarter, more connected ecosystem.” The conversation around AI in game development is not without controversy.
Some commentators on platforms like LinkedIn hype the idea that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, sparking fears of a “click‑to‑game” future. Immens’s team acknowledges the hype but insists that AI should be viewed as a tool, not a replacement for human creativity. “The biggest games will still be made because AI makes everyone better,” Valient asserted.
“Right now AI has negative connotations because it’s disrupting at an unprecedented scale, but that disruption is an opportunity, not a threat.” Economic anxieties also linger, with critics warning that AI‑centric startups could be part of a speculative bubble. Valient likened the situation to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies will fall, the underlying technology will persist. “AI isn’t disappearing,” he said.
“Just as the internet survived the bubble, the useful applications will endure. Our focus is on building a solid engine; AI simply accelerates our ability to dream bigger and iterate faster.” Funding for Immens remains modest and deliberately restrained. The founders have secured “first commitments” but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee warned against the complacency that can accompany abundant capital, emphasizing the importance of staying scrappy.
“Too much money can make a startup lazy,” he laughed, underscoring their preference for lean operations. The company currently consists of the three founders plus a handful of collaborators. This small, focused team is intentional; De Jong explained that building an engine is a complex, nuanced task that cannot be rushed by sheer manpower.
“You need a tight group to make the right architectural decisions and iterate thoughtfully,” he said. “At the same time, there’s a narrow window of opportunity as AI reshapes the industry.
We must balance sufficient resources with the agility of a small team.” Immens is already working on a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team aims to release this demo within the month, a timeline that Brussee says is already twice as fast as initially projected when they started in April.
“Our speed demonstrates the very advantage we’re building into the engine,” he noted. Regarding the business model, Immens remains in early‑stage discussions. While they admire Epic Games’ revenue‑share approach—where the engine succeeds when its users succeed—they admit it’s too soon to commit to a specific structure. “We’ll figure that out as we grow,” Brussee said.
Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will empower creators to push the boundaries of interactive entertainment. “We love games and the artistic expression they enable,” Brussee concluded. “We want to see more risk‑taking, more innovation, and more creativity.
If our technology can help bring those daring ideas to life, that would be amazing.”