For years, Unity and Unreal have been the go‑to tools for game creators, together accounting for roughly 70 % of the titles released on Steam in 2025. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have begun to gain traction, the market remains heavily tilted toward proprietary solutions, with big studios still leaning on in‑house engines—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example. In this seemingly entrenched landscape, three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—believe there is still room for a fresh contender, and they have set out to build it under the banner of Immersive.
The trio’s résumés read like a highlight reel of the modern games sector: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, the experimental studio Boss Key, and even a stint at Apple. Their collective expertise gives them a unique perspective on the shortcomings of today’s dominant engines and fuels their ambition to craft a more adaptable platform.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because "the technology that didn’t exist a couple of years ago is finally available." He points to AI‑augmented programming as the catalyst that can resurrect the notion of building a game engine from the ground up, rather than merely layering features onto an existing, monolithic codebase. "With the help of AI‑supported programming, you can probably start making things from scratch again," he said. "Under a lot of guidance and control, you can build something that can bring full functionality fast." Valient, Immersive’s chief technology officer, stresses that their use of AI differs from the hype‑driven "prompt‑to‑content" narrative that dominates many discussions today. Instead of relying on AI to generate assets on demand, the engine is designed so that AI can reason about the entire codebase and assist developers in extending the engine itself.
"The AI in Immersive is about building the engine in a way that is really extensible," he noted. "If we design the code base with this in mind, then even smaller teams or individuals can come and extend the engine. They are not just limited to a bit of scripting that they can do. They can come in and say: 'I want a custom particle system—let me add it there.'" The motivation behind this AI‑centric approach stems from the harsh economic realities of modern game development.
Brussee describes the current market as "rough," noting that producing a game has become increasingly expensive and risky. "It’s really hard to be successful making games," he said.
"They’re getting ever more costly. You need to do something to break out of that cycle. Can we find new ways of working? Can we find more efficient ways of working, to help decrease the cost and make games with fewer people in a faster time with smaller budgets so you’re not risking your livelihood, your studio, everything?" De Jong, the chief product officer, adds that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has provided a stable foundation, it also stifles innovation. "Now we’re at the point where the industry is facing a number of different challenges, and just continuing to do things as we’ve done before is not really it," he argued.
"We need innovation, not standardisation. That's what we’re pushing for." One major criticism of existing engines is their monolithic nature, which forces developers to conform to proprietary file formats and workflows.
De Jong envisions an engine that adapts to the user, not the other way around. "It needs to be very flexible," he said. "You can interchange things, you can append things, you can modify things, you can create your own tools for what you need.
For example, I can create tools that are exactly what I, with my background, need—exact shortcuts, exact features, exact interface—for my team and project." Valient acknowledges that AI, while powerful, can also behave unpredictably if left unchecked. To counter this, Immersive is built with transparency and control at its core. "When you are using the engine, you are in control of what it is doing," he explained.
"You know the history of how it’s doing it, so that you know it is repeatable." This controllability unlocks new workflow possibilities. Tasks that once required weeks of planning—such as generating five characters with a specific trait—could now be prototyped over a coffee break, then refined or discarded as needed.
The ability to craft bespoke tools on the fly reduces cost and accelerates iteration, which is precisely the advantage the founders are betting on. Flexibility also extends to the engine’s architecture.
De Jong emphasizes that Immersive does not impose a single workflow; developers decide how much AI to integrate and where. "It’s up to you how you want to use it," he said. "We want to make sure that the framework and architecture is set up so that you can decide how you want to work, including how much AI you want to use and where you want to use AI. But we do need to make sure that the AI understands things correctly." Interoperability is another cornerstone of the project.
By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, Immersive aims to play nicely with the broader ecosystem—Blender, Maya, generative‑AI tools, and more. "The moment you have files that are text based, anything can read it," Brussee noted.
"The AI can read files and do things with it. There are interesting open standards being built, and more companies are embedding them into their tools, making interoperability far easier." The broader AI debate in game development is polarized. Some critics warn of a future where a single prompt can generate a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fearing a loss of craftsmanship.
Immersive’s team acknowledges the hype but frames AI as a "tool" rather than a replacement for skill. Valient says, "The big games and everything in between will be done because AI made everybody better.
It has negative connotations right now because it is disrupting everything at a scale that nobody has seen." Economic concerns also linger, with many questioning whether AI‑focused startups are part of a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, arguing that while some companies will fail, the underlying technology will endure.
"With the dot‑com bubble, did the internet go away? No.
All the 'I have a domain, give me money' companies went away. That's probably what happens. There are a lot of companies that will probably not survive.
There's a lot of great technology and a lot of great products that will because they are simply good. That's what we are trying to do." Funding remains modest; Immersive has secured "first commitments" but has not disclosed amounts, preferring a lean operation. Brussee cautions against over‑funding, noting it can lead to complacency.
The team remains small—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—by design, believing that a focused group can make faster, smarter decisions. Currently, Immersive is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing flow, slated for release within the month. The timeline has already outpaced their original projections, with development moving twice as fast as expected.
As for the business model, the founders are still exploring options. While they admire Epic’s revenue‑share approach, they admit it’s too early to commit to a specific strategy. Ultimately, Brussee hopes Immersive will enable creators to push the medium forward, fostering more artistic risk‑taking and innovation. "We all love games.
We love complex expressions of the art form and want to see more of that," he said. "We want to see more creativity and more risk‑taking. Hopefully we can see innovation in games that will be built on this kind of tech. That would be amazing."