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 made noticeable strides in recent years and some studios cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the duopoly of Unity and Unreal still dominates the market.
Enter Immens, a venture founded by three seasoned industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a who's‑who of modern game development, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
The trio believes there is still space for a fresh engine that addresses the shortcomings of the current options. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new platform.
"A few years ago the idea of an AI‑augmented engine didn’t really exist," he said. "Now, with AI‑assisted programming, we can start building from scratch again while still keeping tight control over the process.
It lets us deliver full‑featured tools much faster than before." Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are integrating is not the typical "prompt‑to‑output" model that dominates headlines. "Our AI is baked into the engine’s architecture so it can reason about large codebases and data sets," he explained.
"That means a solo developer or a small team can extend the engine beyond simple scripting. If someone wants a custom particle system, they can add it directly into the core, and the AI helps keep everything coherent and performant." The motivation behind this ambitious project stems from the current economic pressures facing developers. Brussee described the market as "rough," noting that production costs keep climbing and that many studios struggle to break even.
"We need new ways of working that lower costs, shrink team sizes, and accelerate timelines," he argued. "If we can make games with fewer resources, we reduce the risk to creators and studios alike." De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, pointed out that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While that has provided a solid foundation, he believes the industry now requires genuine innovation. "Continuing to do things exactly as we have in the past isn’t enough," he said.
"We need a different approach—something flexible, modular, and adaptable to each project’s unique needs." A key criticism of existing engines is their monolithic nature. Developers often have to conform to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows. De Jong envisions an engine that molds itself to the user rather than the other way around. "You should be able to swap components, append new features, and build bespoke tools that match your personal workflow," he noted.
"Imagine a designer who can craft a custom interface with shortcuts tailored to their team’s habits—our engine should make that possible without heavy overhead." Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can misbehave if left unchecked. "We’re designing Immens so that the user always knows what the engine is doing and why," he said. "Every action is logged and repeatable, giving developers confidence and control. The AI assists, but it never takes away agency." He illustrated this with a scenario: creating five characters with a specific trait used to take weeks of manual work; now, with AI‑driven tools, a developer could sketch the idea over breakfast and generate usable assets in minutes, then discard the temporary tool once the job is done.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’s core philosophy. De Jong emphasized that the engine does not impose a single workflow.
"You decide how much AI you want to employ and where," he said. "Our architecture simply provides a solid framework that can be shaped to your preferences, as long as the AI interprets the instructions correctly." Interoperability is another pillar of the project. By relying on open, text‑based standards, Immens aims to communicate seamlessly with popular tools like Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. "When files are human‑readable, any program can parse them," Brussee explained.
"That means the AI can read, modify, and export data across the whole toolchain, breaking down the silos that have historically plagued proprietary engines." The conversation around AI in game development is often polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn hype the idea of "click‑to‑game" experiences that could conjure a GTA‑scale world from a single prompt. Immens’s founders acknowledge that such extremes are far off, stressing that AI should be viewed as a powerful assistant rather than a magical shortcut. "AI will make everyone better, not replace the creative process," Valient said.
"It currently has a negative stigma because it’s disrupting at a scale we haven’t seen before, but that disruption is an opportunity, not a threat." Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many fearing a bubble of over‑valued startups. Valient compared the situation to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies will fall, the underlying technology endures. "AI isn’t disappearing; the internet didn’t vanish after the bubble burst," he remarked.
"Our goal is to build a genuinely good engine that leverages AI to speed up development and expand creative horizons. Whether the market is a bubble is uncertain, but we’re focused on delivering value regardless." Funding for Immens remains modest. The founders have secured initial commitments but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as "reasonable." Brussee cautioned against excessive capital, saying it can breed complacency. "Startups need to stay scrappy," he laughed.
"Too much money can make you lazy, and we want to keep the lean, focused mindset that drives innovation." The team itself is tiny—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers. They believe a small, tightly knit group is essential for making the nuanced decisions required to craft a sophisticated engine. "You can’t throw a million engineers at this problem and expect it to work," De Jong observed.
"You need a focused crew that iterates, learns, and adapts over time. At the same time, we must be ready to seize the narrow window of opportunity that AI presents in the next few years." Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team aims to release the demo within the month, already having accelerated their timeline dramatically.
"When we started in April, we thought we’d be ready by year‑end," Brussee said. "We’re now twice as fast as we expected, which makes it hard to predict exact dates, but the progress is encouraging." Business‑model discussions are still in early stages. While Immens appreciates Epic Games’ "we succeed when you succeed" licensing philosophy, they have not committed to any specific arrangement yet.
Brussee hinted that a flexible, mutually beneficial model will likely emerge as the product matures. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will empower creators to push the medium forward.
"We love games and want to see more daring, artistic expression," Brussee concluded. "If our technology can lower barriers, encourage risk‑taking, and spark genuine innovation, that would be amazing."