For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game development, together accounting for roughly 70% of all titles released on Steam in 2025. While the open‑source Godot engine has enjoyed a surge in popularity and some major studios cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a notable example—the market has largely been a duopoly controlled by the two giants. Enter Immens, a fledgling venture founded by three industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient.
Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game‑making royalty, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. The trio believes there is still room for a fresh engine that can address the shortcomings of the current landscape and usher in a new era of efficiency.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new platform. "A few years ago the idea of building a modern engine from scratch seemed unrealistic, but with AI‑assisted programming we can finally start from a clean slate and iterate quickly," he said.
He envisions a tool that lets developers generate functional features rapidly while retaining tight oversight. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are integrating is not the “prompt‑to‑output” gimmick that dominates headlines. Instead, the AI is baked into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible.
"If we design the engine with AI in mind, even a solo developer can add a custom particle system or a bespoke rendering pipeline without wrestling with opaque scripting layers," he noted. The goal is to let creators augment the engine’s capabilities swiftly, turning AI into a productivity multiplier rather than a black‑box. The motivation behind Immens stems from the harsh economic realities facing game studios today. Brussee described the current climate as "rough," pointing out that production costs continue to climb, making it increasingly difficult for small teams to break even.
"We need new workflows that reduce overhead, shrink team sizes, and shorten schedules, so creators aren’t forced to gamble their livelihoods on massive budgets," he warned. De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a stable foundation, he argues that the industry now needs genuine innovation. "Continuing to do things the same way won’t solve the challenges we face.
We need a paradigm shift, not just another iteration of the status quo," he asserted. One of the pain points with existing engines, according to De Jong, is their monolithic nature. Developers must adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines, limiting flexibility.
By contrast, an AI‑aware engine could morph to fit the user’s workflow. "You should be able to swap components, append new modules, and craft tools that match your personal workflow—exact shortcuts, UI layouts, and feature sets tailored to your project," he explained. Valient cautioned that AI, while powerful, can misbehave if left unchecked.
Immens therefore emphasizes transparency and control. Users will be able to trace every AI decision, understand its history, and reproduce results reliably. This auditability is crucial for creative pipelines where a designer might need to generate five characters with specific traits in minutes rather than weeks, then discard the temporary tool after use.
"What used to cost thousands of dollars in labor can now be prototyped over coffee," Valient said. Flexibility is a core design principle for Immens. The engine does not impose a single workflow; developers decide how much AI to employ and where. De Jong stressed that the underlying framework must be robust enough to support diverse approaches while ensuring the AI interprets instructions correctly.
Interoperability is another priority. By embracing open, text‑based standards, Immens aims to play nicely with the broader ecosystem—Blender, Maya, and other generative tools can exchange data seamlessly. "When files are human‑readable, any AI can parse and manipulate them, breaking the isolation that many proprietary engines enforce," Brussee noted. This openness could finally bridge the gap between game engines and the growing suite of AI‑driven art and animation utilities.
The conversation around AI in game development is polarized. Some pundits on platforms like LinkedIn hype the notion of "click‑to‑game"—the idea that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience.
Immens’s team acknowledges that such extremes are unlikely in the near term. They view AI as a sophisticated assistant rather than a magical creator. "AI will make everyone better, not replace the craft of game making," Valient asserted.
He warned that the technology’s disruptive nature has generated negative perceptions, but emphasized responsible usage. Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with fears of a bubble and inflated valuations. Valient compared the situation to the dot‑com era, noting that while many startups will fail, the underlying technology endures. "AI isn’t disappearing; it’s becoming the infrastructure of future software, just like the internet did," he said.
Immens’s strategy is to focus on building a solid engine first, using AI to accelerate development and expand creative horizons, rather than chasing hype. Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its "first commitments" but has not disclosed amounts, describing the target as "reasonable." Brussee warned against excess capital, which can breed complacency.
"Startups need to stay scrappy; too much money can make you lazy," he laughed. The company remains a lean operation—just the three founders and a handful of helpers.
This intentional size balances the complexity of building an engine with the need to move quickly and capture a market window that may close as AI matures and larger players adapt. De Jong explained that scaling the team too fast would dilute decision‑making, while moving too slowly could miss the opportunity.
Immens is currently developing a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team aims to release the demo within the month, already having accelerated their timeline dramatically. "We expected to be finished by year‑end, but we’re now twice as fast," Brussee reported, highlighting the very productivity gains they aim to embed in the engine.
Business‑model discussions are ongoing. While Immens appreciates Epic Games’ revenue‑share philosophy—"we succeed when you succeed"—they admit it’s too early to commit to a specific arrangement. The ultimate goal, according to Brussee, is to empower creators to push the medium forward. "We love games as an art form and want to see more risk‑taking and innovation.
If our technology can help make that happen, it would be amazing," he concluded.