For many years, Unity and Unreal have ruled the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly seventy percent of the titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some major studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the duopoly of Unity and Unreal has largely sealed the engine market. Enter Immersive’s founders: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. These three industry veterans, whose résumés span Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple, believe there is still room for a fresh engine and for meaningful improvement.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that the moment is ripe for a new platform that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. “AI‑assisted programming lets us start from scratch again,” he explained.
“With the right guidance and control, we can assemble a fully functional engine quickly.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they employ is not the kind that generates content from a single prompt. Instead, their approach uses AI to make the engine itself highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he said.
“If we design the architecture with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom systems—say, a bespoke particle engine—without being limited to a narrow scripting layer.” This philosophy underpins Immens’s ambition to let creators extend the engine faster and more intuitively. The motivation behind this AI‑powered engine stems from the current economic climate of game development, which Brussee describes as “rough.” Production costs keep climbing, making it increasingly difficult for small studios to survive. “We need new, more efficient ways of working,” he warned. “If we can lower budgets, shorten timelines, and shrink team sizes, we reduce the existential risk for developers and their studios.” De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, observes that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While that standardization provides a solid foundation, the industry now faces a series of challenges that demand innovation rather than incremental tweaks. “Continuing to do exactly what we’ve always done isn’t enough,” he asserted. “We need a different approach.” One of De Jong’s critiques of existing engines is their monolithic nature.
Developers must adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows. By contrast, Immens aims to be a malleable platform that bends to the user’s needs. “Flexibility is key,” he said. “You should be able to swap components, append new ones, modify existing systems, and build custom tools that match your personal workflow—down to shortcuts, UI layout, and feature sets.” Valient also acknowledges AI’s pitfalls.
While the technology is “really powerful,” it can quickly veer off course if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immens is built with transparency and control at its core. “When you use the engine, you always know what it’s doing and why,” he explained.
“You have a full history, making the process repeatable and trustworthy.” This visibility enables developers to create disposable, task‑specific tools—like a rapid character generator that could be conceived over breakfast and discarded after a handful of uses—without incurring the massive costs traditionally associated with such pipelines. Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow.
De Jong emphasizes that the framework and architecture are designed to let users decide how much AI to incorporate and where. “The AI must understand the context correctly, but the choice of usage stays with the developer.” Interoperability is another pillar of Immens’s design. By embracing open, text‑based standards, the engine can seamlessly exchange data with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, or other generative systems.
“If a file is readable as plain text, any AI can parse and act on it,” Brussee noted. “Open standards let us build smarter interfaces across the entire toolchain, something proprietary engines have struggled with.” The broader conversation around AI in game development is polarized. Some pundits on LinkedIn hype the notion of “click‑to‑game” engines that could produce Grand Theft Auto‑scale experiences from a single prompt. Immens’s team acknowledges that such a future might one day be possible, but they view AI primarily as an empowering tool rather than a magic button.
“AI will make everyone better, not replace the craft,” Valient said. “It has a negative stigma now because it’s disrupting at an unprecedented scale, but it’s ultimately a tool we must learn to wield responsibly.” Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with fears of a bubble inflating valuations without substance.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: “The internet didn’t disappear after the bubble burst; many shaky companies fell, but the technology endured. We’re focused on building a solid engine; AI simply accelerates our vision.” Funding remains modest.
Immens has secured its “first commitments” but has not disclosed amounts, describing the target as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑funding, noting that excess capital can breed complacency. “Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. “Too much money can make you lazy.” The company remains lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explains the trade‑off: a massive team doesn’t guarantee success in a complex endeavor like engine development; a focused, small group can make deliberate decisions and iterate faster.
“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 currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release this month. The timeline has already outpaced their original expectations: “When we started in April, we thought we’d need until year‑end. We’re already twice as fast,” Brussee reported.
Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” philosophy but admits it’s too early to lock in specifics. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will enable games that push creative boundaries. “We love games as an art form and want to see more risk‑taking and innovation,” Brussee concluded. “If our technology helps developers build bolder experiences, that would be amazing."