For years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game creation, accounting for roughly 70% of Steam releases in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides and some studios cling to proprietary solutions like Capcom’s RE Engine, the market has largely been monopolized by these two giants. Yet three seasoned industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—believe there is still space for a fresh alternative.
Their new venture, Immens, aims to build an AI‑enhanced engine that can undercut the high costs and slow pipelines that plague small teams. The founders bring a résumé that reads like a who's‑who of game development: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that “the moment is right” to create an engine that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. He sees AI‑assisted programming as a catalyst that lets developers start from a clean slate and achieve full functionality far more quickly than traditional, hand‑coded approaches.
Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, stresses that the AI they employ is not the “prompt‑to‑image” variety that dominates headlines. Instead, the technology is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible.
"AI can reason over large codebases and data sets," he explained. "If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can add a custom particle system or a bespoke gameplay mechanic without wrestling with opaque scripting layers.
The AI acts as a facilitator, accelerating extensions rather than generating them from thin air." The motivation behind this ambitious project stems from the current bleak economics of game development. Brussee describes the environment as “rough,” noting that production budgets are swelling while the risk of failure remains high.
"We need new ways of working that lower costs and let smaller teams ship faster," he said. "If we can shrink the team size and timeline without sacrificing quality, we protect studios from financial ruin." De Jong, the chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While that consolidation provides a stable foundation, it also stifles innovation. "The industry faces many challenges, and simply repeating the old playbook won’t cut it," he argued. "We need a different paradigm—one that embraces flexibility rather than a monolithic, one‑size‑fits‑all solution." Current engines often force developers into proprietary workflows and file formats. De Jong envisions an engine that bends to the user’s needs, allowing interchangeable modules, custom toolchains, and personalized interfaces.
"I can craft tools that match my exact workflow, shortcuts, and UI preferences," he said. "The engine should adapt to the project, not the other way around." Valient acknowledges AI’s power but also its volatility.
"If you don’t keep an eye on it, the system can go off the rails," he warned. To mitigate this, Immens is built to give developers full visibility and control over AI actions, including a complete history of changes. This transparency ensures repeatable results and lets creators generate temporary tools—like a rapid character‑generation script—that can be discarded after use, dramatically reducing development costs.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’s core philosophy. The framework does not dictate a specific workflow; developers decide how much AI to incorporate and where.
De Jong stresses that the architecture must be robust enough to let users choose their own processes while still guaranteeing that the AI interprets commands correctly. Interoperability is another pillar of the design.
By relying on open, text‑based standards, Immens can seamlessly exchange data with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, or other generative pipelines. "When files are human‑readable, any software can parse them," Brussee noted. "That opens the door for smarter, cross‑tool interfaces that have been missing from closed‑source engines for years." The broader conversation about AI in games is polarized. Some pundits on LinkedIn hype the idea of creating Grand Theft Auto‑scale experiences with a single prompt, fueling fear of “click‑to‑game” shortcuts.
Immens’s team sees AI not as a replacement but as an empowering accessory. "AI will make every developer better," Valient said.
"It’s a tool, and like any tool, it can be misused, but it also has the potential to unlock unprecedented creativity." Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the hype is a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, asserting that while some companies will fall, the underlying technology endures.
"AI isn’t disappearing; it’s becoming the infrastructure of future development," he argued. "Our focus is 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 capital as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against excessive cash, noting that too much money can breed complacency. The company deliberately stays lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—to retain agility and keep decision‑making tight.
Balancing team size with ambition is a constant challenge. "You can’t throw a million engineers at an engine and expect miracles," De Jong explained. "A small, focused group can iterate faster and make smarter design choices. At the same time, we must be large enough to seize the window of opportunity the AI wave presents.
It’s a delicate trade‑off." 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 initial expectations—what was projected for year‑end is now arriving within months. Brussee admits that predicting exact milestones is difficult when AI can accelerate development dramatically. The business model is still under discussion.
While Immens admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” revenue share, they consider it premature to lock in specifics. Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will enable creators to push the medium forward, fostering risk‑taking and artistic expression. "We love games and want to see more daring, innovative titles," Brussee concluded. "If our technology can help make that happen, that would be amazing."