For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game development, together accounting for roughly 70% of the titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some major studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been locked into the duopoly of Unity and Unreal. Enter Immersive, a fledgling studio founded by three industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient.
Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game‑making powerhouses, spanning Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they see a clear opening for a fresh engine that can address the shortcomings of the current landscape.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that “the moment is right” to build something that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. He believes that AI‑assisted programming now makes it feasible to start from a clean slate and assemble a fully‑functional engine much faster than traditional methods allow.
Valient, Immersive’s chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI they employ isn’t the “prompt‑to‑image” hype that dominates headlines. Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. “If we design the core with AI in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system or a bespoke gameplay mechanic without wrestling with opaque scripting layers,” he explains.
The goal is to let creators harness AI to accelerate extensions rather than replace human ingenuity. The motivation behind this ambitious project is the increasingly hostile economics of game development. Brussee describes the current climate as “rough”: development budgets are swelling, timelines are stretching, and the risk of financial ruin for small studios is rising. He asks whether the industry can break this cycle by discovering more efficient workflows that reduce headcount and shorten production windows.
De Jong, Immersive’s chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While that consolidation has delivered a stable foundation, it has also stifled innovation. “We’re at a point where the challenges facing developers can’t be solved by merely iterating on the same old tools,” he says. “What we need now is genuine innovation, not more of the same.” One of the pain points De Jong highlights is the monolithic nature of existing engines.
Developers must often conform to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines, limiting creative freedom. With AI, Immersive aims to deliver an engine that molds itself to the developer’s needs.
“Flexibility is key,” he notes. “You should be able to swap components, append new functionality, and craft bespoke tools that match your personal workflow—down to the shortcuts, UI layout, and feature set you prefer.” Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it can dramatically speed up tasks, it can also produce erratic results if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immersive is building transparency into the engine: users can see exactly what the AI is doing, review its decision history, and ensure repeatable outcomes. This level of control, he argues, is essential for maintaining artistic integrity. The team envisions a development process where a designer could, for example, generate five uniquely‑styled characters with a single prompt while sipping coffee, then discard the temporary tool once the job is done.
Previously, such a task might have required weeks of manual labor and significant budget. By turning these workflows into cheap, disposable utilities, Immersive hopes to democratize high‑quality production. Immens does not prescribe a single workflow.
De Jong emphasizes that the engine’s architecture is deliberately agnostic, allowing studios to decide how much AI to incorporate and where. The framework is built on open standards, meaning that text‑based assets can be read and manipulated by any compatible software. “If you’re using Blender, Maya, or any generative tool, you can plug it straight into Immersive because the data formats speak the same language,” Brussee says. This openness contrasts sharply with many current engines, which often act as closed ecosystems.
The broader industry is divided on AI’s role in game creation. Some commentators on LinkedIn predict a future where entire Grand Theft Auto‑style worlds can be conjured with a single prompt—an outlook that fuels both excitement and fear. Immersive’s founders see AI as a powerful assistant rather than a replacement. Valient believes that AI will elevate the overall skill level of developers, making them more productive without erasing the human creative spark.
Economic concerns also loom large. Critics warn that the AI boom could be a bubble with inflated valuations. Valient counters that, like the dot‑com era, the underlying technology will persist even if some companies fail. “Our focus is on building a solid engine; AI simply helps us iterate faster and think bigger,” he says.
Whether the market is in a bubble remains uncertain, but Immersive is betting on the longevity of AI as a development tool. Funding for Immersive is still modest. The founders have secured “first commitments” but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency. The team remains intentionally lean—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—so they can stay scrappy and make deliberate decisions.
Balancing team size with ambition is a delicate act. De Jong explains that building an engine is a complex undertaking that cannot be solved by throwing a million engineers at the problem. Instead, a small, focused group can iterate quickly and make thoughtful architectural choices. At the same time, they must seize the current window of opportunity created by AI’s rise, ensuring they have enough resources to bring the product to market before the momentum fades.
Immersive is currently targeting a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. They aim to release this demo within the month, a timeline that Brussee admits is already twice as fast as originally projected when the project began in April.
Regarding the business model, Brussee mentions admiration for Epic Games’ “we succeed when you succeed” licensing approach, but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific strategy. Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower creators to push the medium forward, fostering more risk‑taking, artistic expression, and innovation in games. In their own words, “We love games.
We love the complex artistic statements they can make, and we want to see more of that. If Immersive can help build the next wave of creative, daring titles, that would be amazing.”