For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game creation, accounting for roughly 70% of Steam releases in 2025. While open‑source options like Godot have gained traction and some studios cling to proprietary tools—Capcom’s RE Engine being a notable example—the market has largely been a duopoly.
Against this backdrop, three seasoned industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have founded Immens with the belief that there is still space for a fresh engine that improves on the status quo. The founders’ résumés read like a roll‑call of heavyweight studios: Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and Apple, among others.
Their combined experience gives them a unique perspective on why the current landscape feels stale. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that a window of opportunity now exists that simply didn’t a few years ago. “AI‑assisted programming lets us start from scratch again,” he said. “With the right guidance and control, we can deliver full‑featured tools much faster than before.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI they are integrating is not the kind that spits out finished assets from a single prompt.
Instead, it serves as a structural aid that makes the engine itself more extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he explained. “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 effect—without being limited to a narrow scripting layer.” This philosophy aims to give creators the freedom to extend the engine quickly, leveraging AI as a productivity multiplier rather than a replacement for human ingenuity. The motivation behind Immens is rooted in the harsh economic realities of modern game development.
Brussee describes the current climate as “rough.” Production budgets are ballooning, and the risk of financial ruin for small studios is growing. “We need new ways of working that cut costs and accelerate timelines,” he said. “If we can build games with fewer people, smaller budgets, and faster cycles, we protect studios and the creators behind them.” De Jong, the chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a stable foundation, it also stifles innovation.
“The industry faces a host of challenges, and simply repeating past methods won’t solve them,” he asserted. “We need breakthrough ideas, not just more of the same.” One of his key criticisms of existing engines is their monolithic nature.
Developers must adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows, which can be a bottleneck for creativity. With AI, Immens aims to become an engine that bends to the developer’s needs rather than forcing developers to bend to it. Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens’s design. De Jong envisions a system where users can swap components, append new modules, and craft tailor‑made tools that match their personal workflows.
“Imagine being able to design an interface with exactly the shortcuts, features, and layout that your team requires,” he said. “That level of customization has been out of reach for most developers using the big engines.” Valient also warns that AI, while powerful, can misbehave if left unchecked.
Immens therefore incorporates extensive transparency and control mechanisms. Users can trace the engine’s decisions, review its history, and ensure repeatability. This approach, he believes, mitigates the risk of AI “going off the rails.” A practical example illustrates the potential impact: creating five characters with a specific trait used to require weeks of planning and manual work.
With Immens’s AI‑enhanced tools, a developer could prototype that scenario over a coffee break, reuse the generated workflow multiple times, and discard it when finished—dramatically reducing cost and time. The platform does not enforce a single workflow. Instead, it provides a modular architecture that lets developers decide how much AI to employ and where. “The framework is deliberately open,” De Jong noted.
“Whether you want a hands‑on approach or an AI‑driven pipeline, the engine adapts.” Interoperability is another priority. By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, Immens enables seamless communication with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. “If the files are readable, the AI can process them,” Brussee explained. “This openness eliminates the isolation that many proprietary engines create.” The broader AI debate in game development is heated, with some pundits predicting a future where entire AAA experiences can be generated from a single prompt.
Immens’s team acknowledges the hype but insists their vision is more modest: AI as a powerful assistant, not a replacement for human creativity. “Big games will still be made by talented teams, but AI will make everyone better,” Valient said. “It’s a tool, and like any tool, it can be used responsibly or misused.” Economic concerns also swirl around AI, with fears of a bubble inflating valuations.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted. “AI isn’t going away,” he asserted. “Our goal is to build a solid engine that stands on its own merits, using AI to accelerate development and inspire bigger dreams.” Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its first commitments but has not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑funding, which can breed complacency.
“Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. “Too much cash can make you lazy.” The company remains lean: the three founders plus a handful of helpers. This small size is intentional, allowing rapid decision‑making while avoiding the inefficiencies of a massive team. De Jong explains the trade‑off: “Building an engine is complex, but you don’t need a thousand engineers.
A focused group can iterate quickly and hit the market window before AI dynamics shift again.” Immens is currently developing 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 in weeks. Brussee admits that predicting milestones is challenging when the technology moves this fast. Regarding the business model, Immens admires Epic Games’ “we succeed when you succeed” licensing approach but admits it is too early to commit to a specific strategy.
The ultimate aim, according to Brussee, is to empower creators to push the medium forward. “We love games as an art form,” he said. “We want more creativity, more risk‑taking, and more innovation.
If our engine can help make that happen, that would be amazing.”