For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces shaping the video‑game development landscape, accounting for roughly 70 % of all titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has enjoyed a notable surge in popularity and large publishers continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the duopoly of Unity and Unreal still commands the majority of the market. Enter Immens, a fledgling studio founded by three seasoned industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a who's‑who of game‑making powerhouses, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Together they argue that the current engine ecosystem is ripe for disruption and that a new, AI‑enhanced platform can address long‑standing pain points. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a fresh engine because “the tools that existed a couple of years ago simply don’t exist any more.” He believes that AI‑assisted programming now makes it feasible to start building a game engine from the ground up while still delivering full‑featured capabilities quickly.
The idea, he says, is to give developers a high‑level of guidance and control while letting the underlying AI accelerate the creation of core systems. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, is careful to distinguish the company’s use of AI from the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑asset” narrative that dominates many discussions today. According to him, the AI in Immens is not about conjuring content from a single line of text; rather, it is embedded in the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. "AI can reason about large amounts of data and source code exceptionally well," he notes.
"If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer or a tiny team can extend it far beyond simple scripting. Want a custom particle system? You can plug it in directly. That’s the sort of flexibility we’re building." The motivation behind this ambitious project is the increasingly hostile economic climate for game creators.
Brussee describes the market as "rough," emphasizing that development costs continue to climb, making it harder for studios to survive without massive budgets. He asks whether new workflows could break this cycle, allowing smaller teams to produce high‑quality experiences faster and with less financial risk.
De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, echoes this sentiment, noting that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While standardization provides a solid foundation, he argues that the industry now needs genuine innovation, not more of the same. One of the core criticisms De Jong levels at existing engines is their monolithic nature.
Developers are forced to adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines, limiting creativity. With AI, Immens aims to flip that dynamic, delivering an engine that molds itself to the developer’s needs. "Flexibility is paramount," he says.
"You should be able to swap components, append new functionality, and craft bespoke tools that match your workflow exactly—down to the shortcuts, UI layout, and feature set you require." Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it is undeniably powerful, it can also veer off course if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immens is built around transparency and control. Users will always know what the engine is doing, have access to its decision history, and be able to reproduce results reliably.
This level of oversight enables rapid prototyping—imagine designing five unique characters with specific traits over a coffee break rather than spending weeks on manual iteration. Such workflows, once prohibitively expensive, become accessible and repeatable. Immens’s philosophy rejects a one‑size‑fits‑all workflow. De Jong stresses that the engine does not impose a particular development approach; instead, it offers a modular architecture that lets teams decide how much AI to incorporate and where.
The framework is deliberately open‑standard, meaning that text‑based files can be read and manipulated by any tool. Brussee points out that this openness facilitates seamless integration with industry staples like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI suite.
"When everything speaks a common language, you can plug in whatever you need without fighting against a closed, proprietary system," he explains. The conversation around AI in game development is polarized. Some pundits on LinkedIn hype the notion that a single prompt could generate a Grand‑Theft‑Auto‑style world, fueling fear that AI will render traditional craftsmanship obsolete. Immens’s founders see a more measured future.
While they acknowledge that a "click‑to‑game" paradigm might eventually emerge, they view AI primarily as an empowering tool that elevates human creators. Valient asserts that AI will make developers better, not replace them, and that the technology’s current negative perception stems from its disruptive scale. Economic anxieties also surface, especially concerns that AI‑focused startups are inflating a bubble reminiscent of the dot‑com era. Valient draws a parallel: the internet didn’t disappear after the bubble burst; many companies vanished, but the underlying technology persisted and flourished.
Immens aims to be among the durable players by focusing on building a genuinely useful engine rather than chasing hype. "We’re making a solid product first; AI simply accelerates our ability to dream bigger and iterate faster," he says. Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its "first commitments" but has not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as "reasonable." Brussee warns against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency.
The team intentionally remains lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—to stay scrappy and agile. De Jong explains the balancing act: a game engine is a complex undertaking that cannot be solved by sheer manpower, yet there is a narrow window of opportunity driven by AI advancements. The goal is to assemble just enough talent and capital to seize that moment without overextending.
Currently, Immens is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team expected this milestone by year‑end, but they are already delivering it months ahead of schedule, a testament to the speed gains they claim AI provides.
Timeline predictions remain fluid, however, as the technology and market evolve rapidly. Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic Games’ philosophy of succeeding when developers succeed, but admits it is too early to commit to a specific revenue structure.
The overarching ambition, he concludes, is to empower creators to push the boundaries of what games can be. "We love games, we love the artistic expression they enable, and we want to see more risk‑taking and innovation," he says.
"If our engine can help make that happen, it would be amazing."