Unity and Unreal have long held sway over the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70 % of Steam releases in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides in recent years and some studios—such as Capcom with its RE Engine—still favor proprietary solutions, the market has largely been a duopoly. Into this entrenched arena step three seasoned veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who have founded Immens with the belief that a fresh engine can still find a foothold, and that it can be built better.
All three founders bring heavyweight résumés from industry powerhouses: Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Their collective experience fuels confidence that they can challenge the status quo.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that the timing is now ripe for a new engine, noting that “a few years ago the tools we need simply didn’t exist.” He points to AI‑assisted programming as a catalyst that lets developers start from a clean slate and achieve full‑featured functionality far more rapidly than before. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI they are integrating is not the “prompt‑and‑receive” gimmick that dominates headlines.
Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he explains. “If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system, a bespoke animation pipeline, or any other feature without being confined to a narrow scripting layer.” The goal is to let creators harness AI as a productivity multiplier, accelerating the addition of new subsystems while retaining full control.
The motivation behind Immens’s AI‑first approach stems from a grim market reality. Brussee describes today’s development climate as “rough,” where budgets are inflating and the risk of failure is soaring.
“Games are getting more expensive, and the traditional pipeline forces studios into a high‑stakes gamble,” he says. The team believes that by rethinking workflows and leveraging AI, developers can produce high‑quality titles with smaller teams, tighter timelines, and lower financial exposure. De Jong, the chief product officer, observes that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has produced stable foundations, it also stifles innovation. “The industry faces a host of challenges, and simply iterating on existing engines isn’t enough,” he asserts. He criticizes the monolithic nature of current tools, which often lock developers into proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines. With AI, Immens aims to deliver a malleable engine that adapts to the user’s needs, allowing developers to swap, extend, or replace components on the fly.
De Jong envisions a workflow where a designer can craft a custom toolbar, assign personalized shortcuts, and shape the interface to match the exact demands of their project. Valient acknowledges AI’s power but also its volatility. “If you don’t monitor it, the system can go off the rails quickly,” he warns. Immens therefore emphasizes transparency: users will always see what the engine is doing, retain a full history of changes, and be able to reproduce results reliably.
This level of oversight makes it possible to generate, for example, five distinct characters with specific traits in the time it once took weeks—perhaps while sipping coffee and eating breakfast. Such on‑demand tooling, once prohibitively costly, becomes a routine part of the development cycle.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’s core philosophy. De Jong stresses that the engine does not dictate a single workflow; developers decide how much AI to employ and where. The architecture is deliberately open, supporting a spectrum of usage patterns—from heavily AI‑augmented pipelines to more traditional, manual approaches.
Moreover, Immens adopts open standards for asset interchange. “When files are text‑based, any tool can read them,” Brussee notes. This openness means that Blender, Maya, or any generative‑art system can plug directly into the engine without cumbersome conversion layers, fostering a smoother ecosystem.
The broader conversation about AI in game creation is polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn hype a future where a single prompt spawns a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fueling fears of “click‑to‑game” shortcuts. Immens’s founders see AI as a powerful assistant rather than a replacement.
Valient believes AI will elevate the entire industry, making every developer more capable. De Jong adds that, like any technology, AI can be misused, but the responsibility lies with creators to apply it ethically.
Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the current hype is a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, arguing that while some ventures will fail, the underlying technology—like the internet—endures. Immens’s strategy is to build a genuinely useful engine first; AI simply accelerates that vision.
The team is modest about funding, having secured “first commitments” but refusing to disclose exact figures. Brussee cautions against over‑capitalization, noting that excess cash can breed complacency and diminish the scrappy mindset essential for a startup. Immens remains a lean operation—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explains that engine development is a complex, nuanced task that cannot be rushed by sheer manpower.
Instead, a focused, small team can iterate thoughtfully, make critical architectural decisions, and seize the narrow window of opportunity presented by AI’s rise. The company is currently targeting a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release later this month. Brussee reveals that the team originally projected a year‑long timeline, yet they are already moving twice as fast. While the business model is still being refined, Immens appreciates Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy but admits it’s too early for concrete commitments.
Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will enable games that push artistic and technical boundaries. “We love games and want to see more creativity, risk‑taking, and innovation,” Brussee says. “If our engine can help developers build experiences that were previously out of reach, that would be amazing.”