Unity and Unreal have long held sway over the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70% of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While Godot has enjoyed a surge in popularity over recent years and large studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions such as Capcom’s RE Engine, the market for game engines remains heavily dominated by the two giants.
Enter Immens, a new venture founded by three industry stalwarts—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who believe there is still room for a fresh engine and, more importantly, for a better way to build games. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development, with experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, Apple, and other heavyweight studios. Together they are setting out to challenge the status quo.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine. "There’s an opportunity now that didn’t exist a couple of years ago," he said. "AI‑assisted programming lets us start from scratch again, giving us the ability to ship full‑featured functionality much faster while retaining tight guidance and control." Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are integrating is not the kind of “prompt‑to‑art” hype that dominates headlines.
"Our AI is built into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible," he noted. "Because AI can reason over large codebases, we can design the engine so that even solo developers or small teams can plug in custom systems—say, a bespoke particle system—without being limited to superficial scripting. The goal is to let creators extend the engine quickly and safely." The motivation behind this AI‑powered platform stems from the current economic climate of the games sector, which Brussee describes as "rough." Development costs continue to climb, making it increasingly difficult for independent studios to survive.
"We need new, more efficient workflows that reduce budgets and team sizes while still delivering high‑quality experiences," he argued. "Otherwise you risk your studio, your livelihood, and the creative risks you’re willing to take." De Jong, Immens’ chief product officer, observed that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has provided a solid foundation, he believes the industry now needs genuine innovation rather than more of the same. "The monolithic approach of current engines forces developers to conform to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines," he said. "With AI, we can create an engine that bends to the developer’s needs, not the other way around." Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens.
De Jong envisions a system where users can swap components, append new modules, or completely redesign tools to match their personal workflow. "Imagine being able to craft a UI with the exact shortcuts, features, and layout that fit your team’s process," he explained. "That level of customization has been impossible with the major engines, which tend to lock you into a predefined workflow." Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can quickly go off‑track if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immens is being built with transparency and control at its heart.
"When you use the engine, you always know what it’s doing and why," he said. "You can trace the history of each action, ensuring repeatability and allowing you to create bespoke tools for specific problems—like generating five characters with a unique trait in minutes instead of weeks." The architecture of Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow. De Jong emphasized that developers can decide how much AI assistance they want and where to apply it.
"Our framework is open‑ended; you can lean heavily on AI for certain tasks or keep things manual where you prefer precision. The key is that the AI must understand the context correctly." Interoperability is another pillar of the project.
By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, Immens aims to play nicely with existing tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. "If a file is readable as plain text, any AI can parse and manipulate it," Brussee noted.
"This openness eliminates the siloed nature of many current engines, allowing seamless data exchange across the entire development stack." The conversation around AI in game creation is polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn sensationalize the idea that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fueling fear and backlash. The Immens team acknowledges that a future "click‑to‑game" engine might emerge, but they stress that AI should be viewed as a tool, not a replacement for human creativity. "AI makes everyone better, not the sole creator," Valient asserted.
"It’s disruptive, yes, but that disruption is what drives progress." Economic concerns also loom large. Critics warn that the AI boom could be a bubble with inflated valuations.
Valient likened the situation to the dot‑com era, arguing 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 focus is on building a solid engine that leverages AI to accelerate development and inspire bigger dreams. Whether we’re in a bubble is uncertain, but history shows that useful technology survives." Funding remains modest.
Immens has secured its "first commitments" but has not disclosed amounts, describing them as "reasonable." Brussee cautioned against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency. "Startups need to stay scrappy; otherwise you lose the edge that comes from resource constraints," he laughed. The company remains a tiny team—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design.
De Jong explained the delicate balance between having enough talent to tackle a complex engine and avoiding the temptation to throw a massive workforce at the problem. "Building an engine is intricate; you can’t simply hire a million engineers and expect it to work. You need a focused, iterative team that can make deliberate decisions and learn from them. At the same time, we must seize the current window of opportunity created by AI’s rise.
That’s the trade‑off we’re navigating." Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release later this month. "When we started in April, we thought we’d be there by year‑end," Brussee recalled.
"We’re already twice as fast as expected, which makes timeline predictions tricky." The business model is still being fleshed out. While Immens admires Epic’s "we succeed when you succeed" licensing philosophy, Brussee admits it’s too early to commit to a specific approach.
The team’s immediate priority is delivering a functional engine that empowers creators. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will catalyze a new wave of artistic risk‑taking in games.
"We love games and the complex expressions they enable," Brussee said. "We want to see more creativity, more daring projects, and innovation built on technology like ours. That would be amazing for the whole industry."