For years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces shaping the video‑game development landscape, accounting for roughly seventy percent of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While Godot has carved out a modest niche and some large studios cling to 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 industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a roll‑call of the most influential game‑tech houses—Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they argue that the current engine ecosystem, despite its maturity, still leaves room for a fresh approach and meaningful improvement.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. “With AI‑assisted programming we can start building things from the ground up again,” he said.
“Guided by intelligent tools, we can deliver full‑featured functionality much faster than before.” Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they employ is not the flashy, prompt‑to‑image type that dominates headlines. Instead, their AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible.
“AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he noted. “If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom systems—like a bespoke particle engine—without being limited to a handful of scripts.” This philosophy aims to let creators extend the engine swiftly, using AI as an accelerator rather than a replacement for human ingenuity. The motivation behind Immens’ AI‑centric engine is the increasingly hostile economics of game development.
Brussee described the market as “rough,” pointing out that production costs are spiraling upward, making it harder for studios to break even. “We need new ways of working that lower costs, shrink team sizes, and speed up delivery,” he argued.
“Otherwise developers risk their livelihoods and the very existence of their studios.” De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has given developers a solid foundation, he believes the industry now requires genuine innovation. “Continuing to do exactly what we’ve always done isn’t enough,” he said. “We need a different paradigm—one that embraces flexibility rather than a monolithic, one‑size‑fits‑all approach.” Current engines often force developers to conform to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows.
De Jong envisions an engine that molds itself to the user’s needs. “It must be interchangeable, extensible, and customizable,” he explained. “I want to be able to craft tools that match my personal workflow—the shortcuts, the UI, the features—so my team can work exactly the way we need to.” Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can quickly go off‑track if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immens is building transparency into the system: users will always know what the engine is doing, why it made a particular decision, and can reproduce the same results later. This level of control, he argues, turns AI from a black box into a reliable partner in the creative process. A practical example he gave: imagine needing five characters with a specific trait.
In the past, this could take weeks of manual labor. With Immens’ AI‑enhanced tools, a developer could sketch the requirement over coffee, generate the assets, and then discard the temporary tool after use—saving both time and money.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’ core design. De Jong stressed that the engine does not dictate a single workflow; developers decide how much AI to incorporate and where. “The architecture is deliberately open so you can pick and choose the AI components that make sense for your project,” he said. Interoperability is another pillar of the platform.
By embracing open, text‑based standards, Immens can talk to other industry tools—Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI pipeline—without the friction that often plagues proprietary engines. “When files are human‑readable, the AI can parse and manipulate them directly,” Brussee explained. “That creates smarter interfaces across the entire toolchain.” The broader conversation about AI in game development is polarized.
Some pundits on LinkedIn hype the idea of “click‑to‑game” experiences, claiming that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale world. Immens’ founders acknowledge that such a future might one day be possible, but they view AI primarily as an empowerment tool rather than a replacement for human creativity. “AI will make everyone better,” Valient asserted. “It’s disruptive now, but that’s just the growing‑pain phase of any transformative technology.” Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the current hype is a bubble.
Valient likened the situation to the dot‑com era: the internet didn’t disappear when the bubble burst; many companies fell, but the underlying technology endured. “We’re building a solid engine first; AI just makes us faster and lets us dream bigger,” he said. “Whether it’s a bubble or not, we can’t predict the future, but we can focus on delivering value.” Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its “first commitments,” though the exact amount is undisclosed and described as “reasonable.” Brussee cautioned against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency.
“Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. The team itself is tiny—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explained the trade‑off: a massive crew doesn’t guarantee success in building a complex engine; a focused, small group can make deliberate decisions and iterate quickly. “We have a limited window of opportunity as AI reshapes the industry,” he said.
“We need enough resources to hit that window, but not so many that we lose agility.” Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The goal is to release the demo within the month, a timeline that already outpaces their original end‑of‑year estimate.
“We’re moving twice as fast as we thought we would,” Brussee admitted, underscoring the speed gains they attribute to AI‑assisted development. When asked about the business model, Brussee mentioned admiration for Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy, but admitted it’s too early to commit to a specific approach.
Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will enable creators to push the medium forward, fostering more artistic risk‑taking and innovation. “We love games and want to see more daring, expressive works,” Brussee concluded. “If our technology can help developers build those experiences, that would be amazing."