For many years, Unity and Unreal have ruled the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70% of the titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been a duopoly of the two giants. Enter Immersive, a fledgling studio founded by three seasoned veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a who's‑who of the industry, with stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Together they believe there is still room for a fresh engine that addresses the shortcomings of the current offerings. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new platform. “A couple of years ago this kind of engine didn’t exist,” he said. “With AI‑assisted programming we can start building from the ground up again, under tight guidance, and deliver full‑featured tools much faster.” Valient, Immersive’s chief technology officer, clarified that their use of AI is not the typical “prompt‑to‑output” approach that dominates headlines.
Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible. “The AI can reason over large codebases and data sets,” he noted.
“If we design the core with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system or any other feature without being limited to a tiny scripting layer.” This extensibility is meant to let creators augment the engine quickly, leveraging AI as a productivity booster rather than a replacement for human creativity. The motivation behind Immersive’s AI‑powered engine stems from the current economic pressures on developers. Brussee described the market as “rough,” pointing out that development costs keep climbing, making it harder for studios to stay afloat. “We need new ways of working that cut costs, shrink team sizes, and shorten timelines,” he argued.
“If we can make games with fewer resources, we reduce the risk to studios and the people who depend on them.” De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has given developers a solid foundation, it also stifles innovation. “The industry faces a host of challenges, and simply repeating the old formulas won’t solve them,” he said. “What we need now is genuine innovation, not more of the same.” One of the pain points De Jong highlighted is the monolithic nature of existing engines.
Developers often have to conform to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows. By contrast, Immersive’s vision is an engine that molds itself to the developer’s needs.
“It must be flexible—allowing you to swap components, append new modules, or build bespoke tools tailored to your workflow,” he explained. “Imagine having an interface with exactly the shortcuts and features your team requires, without fighting the engine’s constraints.” Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can quickly go off‑track if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immersive is building transparency into the system: users can see what the AI is doing, review its decision history, and ensure repeatable results. This control enables rapid prototyping—for example, generating five distinct characters with specific traits in minutes rather than weeks—while still allowing developers to discard temporary tools once they’ve served their purpose. Flexibility is a core tenet of Immersive’s design philosophy.
De Jong emphasized that the engine does not force a single workflow or a predetermined level of AI involvement. “You decide how much AI you want and where you want to apply it,” he said.
“Our architecture simply provides a solid framework that can be customized to any pipeline.” Interoperability is another focus. By adopting open, text‑based standards, Immersive aims to make its engine play nicely with the broader ecosystem of tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative software. “When files are readable as plain text, any tool can interpret them,” Brussee noted.
“This openness lets the AI ingest and manipulate assets seamlessly, creating smarter interfaces across the board.” The conversation around AI in game development is often polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn hype the notion of “click‑to‑game” experiences, suggesting that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale world. While Immersive acknowledges that such extreme automation might someday be feasible, they view AI primarily as an enhancer of human talent.
“AI will make every creator better, not replace them,” Valient asserted. “It’s a tool, and like any tool, it can be misused, but it also holds the potential to unlock unprecedented creativity.” Economic anxieties also linger, with many questioning whether the AI boom is a bubble.
Valient drew parallels to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies will fall, the underlying technology endures. “AI isn’t disappearing; the internet didn’t vanish after the bubble burst,” he said. “Our goal is to build a solid engine that leverages AI to accelerate development and inspire bigger dreams.
Whether the market is in a bubble is uncertain, but we’re focused on delivering real value.” Funding remains modest. Immersive has secured its “first commitments” but has not disclosed amounts, describing the capital raise as “reasonable.” Brussee cautioned against over‑funding, saying it can breed complacency.
“Startups that receive too much money often become lazy; we need to stay scrappy.” The team is intentionally lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers. They believe a small, focused group can make critical decisions faster than a massive organization. De Jong explained the trade‑off: “Building an engine is complex, but you don’t need a thousand engineers. You need a tight team that can iterate quickly and seize the current window of opportunity created by AI’s rise.” Immersive is currently developing a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow.
They aim to release the demo within the month, already having accelerated their timeline dramatically—what was initially projected to take until year‑end is now expected in half that time. Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing approach but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific strategy.
Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower developers to push the medium forward, fostering more artistic risk‑taking and innovation. “We love games and want to see more daring, creative experiences,” Brussee concluded. “If our technology helps bring that vision to life, that would be amazing."