For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the go‑to tools for game creators, accounting for roughly 70 % of all titles released on Steam in 2025. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have begun to attract attention, the market remains heavily dominated by these two powerhouses, with a handful of large studios still preferring proprietary solutions like Capcom’s RE Engine. In this environment, three seasoned industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—believe there is still room for a fresh approach.
Their startup, Immens, aims to build a next‑generation, AI‑enhanced engine that challenges the status quo. The founders’ résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development. Brussee and De Jong have spent years at Epic Games, the creators of Unreal, while Valient’s background includes stints at Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and Apple. Together they see an opportunity that didn’t exist a few years ago: leveraging AI‑assisted programming to let developers start from a clean slate and assemble functional systems far more quickly than traditional pipelines allow.
Brussee explains that the current climate is “rough” for creators. Game budgets keep climbing, and the risk of failure grows with each additional dollar spent.
“It’s becoming harder to break even,” he says. “We need new ways of working that shrink costs, speed up production, and let smaller teams compete without jeopardising their livelihoods.” De Jong points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While that consolidation has given developers a solid foundation, it also creates a monolithic environment where studios must adapt to the engine’s constraints, proprietary file formats, and fixed workflows. “We need innovation, not more standardisation,” he argues.
“A flexible engine that bends to the developer’s needs, rather than the other way around, is what we’re building.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI component is not about generating entire games from a single prompt. Instead, the AI is designed to make the engine itself more extensible. By reasoning over large codebases, the AI can suggest or even implement new modules—such as a custom particle system—allowing solo creators or tiny teams to augment the engine without deep scripting expertise.
“It’s about giving people the ability to extend the engine quickly and safely,” he says. Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens’s design philosophy.
De Jong envisions an environment where developers can swap out components, append new tools, and craft bespoke interfaces that match their personal workflows. “If I need a toolbar with a specific shortcut layout for my art pipeline, I can build it.
The engine should let me shape it exactly the way I need, not force me into a one‑size‑fits‑all UI.” The team is also mindful of AI’s potential pitfalls. Valient warns that, while powerful, AI can “go off the rails” if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immens tracks every AI‑driven change, preserving a clear history so developers always know what the engine is doing and can reproduce results reliably. This transparency turns AI from a black box into a controllable assistant that speeds up repetitive tasks—like generating five characters with a particular attribute—without sacrificing artistic intent. Interoperability is another priority. Immens will rely on open, text‑based file formats wherever possible, enabling seamless integration with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, or any generative asset pipeline.
“When files are plain text, any AI can read and manipulate them,” Brussee notes. “That means you can plug in external software without fighting proprietary barriers, creating a truly collaborative ecosystem.” The conversation around AI in game development is often charged with hype and fear. Some commentators predict a future where a single prompt produces a Grand‑Theft‑Auto‑level experience, sparking concerns about job displacement and artistic dilution.
Immens’s founders see a more measured future: AI as a powerful tool that enhances human creativity rather than replaces it. “Big games will still be crafted by talented teams,” Valient asserts.
“AI simply makes everyone better at what they do.” Economic anxieties also linger, especially given the recent surge of AI‑focused startups and the specter of a valuation bubble. Valient draws a parallel with the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted and flourished.
“AI isn’t going away,” he says. “Our goal is to build a solid engine that stands on its own merits, regardless of market hype.” Funding for Immens remains modest. The founders have secured “first commitments” but have not disclosed exact figures, emphasizing that excessive capital can breed complacency.
“Too much money can make a startup lazy,” Brussee laughs. “We want to stay scrappy and focused on delivering real value.” Currently, the company consists of the three founders plus a handful of helpers. They believe a lean team is essential for making deliberate architectural decisions without the overhead of a massive staff.
“Building an engine is complex, but you don’t need a thousand engineers to get it right,” De Jong explains. “A small, focused group can iterate faster and adapt to the rapid changes AI brings to the industry.” Immens is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a full editing workflow powered by generative AI, slated for release later this month.
The timeline has already outpaced the founders’ original expectations—what was projected to take until year‑end is now on track for a few months. This acceleration, they say, underscores the potential of AI‑assisted development. When asked about the eventual business model, Brussee mentions admiration for Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific approach. The primary ambition remains clear: to empower creators to build more ambitious, risk‑taking games without the prohibitive costs that currently dominate the market.
In summary, Immens seeks to rewrite the rules of game engine design by marrying AI’s reasoning capabilities with an open, modular architecture. By giving developers granular control, encouraging extensibility, and fostering interoperability, the startup hopes to break the costly cycle that has long plagued the industry and open the door to a new wave of innovative, affordable games.