For many years the game‑development landscape has been dominated by a duopoly of engines: Unity and Unreal. In 2025 those two platforms powered roughly seventy percent of all titles released on Steam, while the open‑source Godot engine enjoyed a noticeable surge in popularity.
Nevertheless, the market remains heavily skewed toward proprietary solutions, with large studios still leaning on in‑house tools such as Capcom's RE Engine. In this environment, three seasoned veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have decided that there is still room for a fresh approach. Their new venture, Immens, aims to build an AI‑enhanced game engine that challenges the status quo and offers a more flexible, affordable alternative for smaller teams. The founders bring an impressive résumé to the table.
Brussee and De Jong have histories at Epic Games, the creators of Unreal, as well as stints at Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and Apple. Valient, the chief technology officer, adds deep expertise in engine architecture and AI integration.
Together they argue that recent advances in artificial intelligence open a window that simply did not exist a few years ago. "With AI‑assisted programming you can start building from scratch again," Brussee told GamesIndustry.biz, emphasizing that guided, controllable AI can accelerate the delivery of fully functional features. Valient is careful to distinguish Immens' use of AI from the hype‑driven "prompt‑to‑content" narrative that dominates many discussions today.
He explains that the engine’s AI is designed to make the codebase highly extensible. "If we construct the engine with AI reasoning in mind, even a solo developer can add a custom particle system or a bespoke gameplay mechanic without wrestling with opaque scripting layers," he says. In practice this means the engine will expose its internals in a way that AI tools can safely modify, allowing developers to iterate faster while retaining full control over the resulting code.
The motivation behind this ambitious project is the increasingly hostile economics of game development. Brussee describes the current climate as "rough" and warns that production costs are spiralling upward, making it harder for independent creators to survive. "We need new ways of working that cut expenses, shrink team sizes, and speed up delivery," he argues. By leveraging AI to automate repetitive tasks—such as generating asset variations, balancing parameters, or even drafting simple scripts—Immens hopes to lower the barrier to entry and reduce financial risk for studios of all sizes.
De Jong, Immens' chief product officer, points out that the engine market has entered a phase of "standardisation and consolidation." While this has produced stable foundations, it has also stifled innovation. "Continuing to do things the same way will not solve the challenges we face," he asserts. He criticises the "monolithic approach" of existing engines, which often forces developers to conform to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines. In contrast, Immens is being built as a modular platform where components can be swapped, extended, or replaced at will.
De Jong envisions a workflow where a developer can craft a custom toolset—complete with personalized shortcuts, UI layouts, and feature sets—tailored precisely to the needs of a particular project. Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it can accelerate development dramatically, it can also produce unexpected results if left unchecked.
To mitigate this, Immens will embed comprehensive logging and version‑control mechanisms, ensuring that developers always know what the engine is doing, why it made a particular decision, and how to reproduce or reverse it. This transparency is crucial for maintaining artistic intent and for debugging complex systems that might otherwise become black boxes. Flexibility is a core design principle.
The engine will not impose a single workflow; instead, it will provide a robust architecture that lets users decide how much AI assistance they want and where to apply it. "You can choose to use AI for asset generation, code scaffolding, or level design, or you can ignore it entirely and work manually," De Jong explains. This optionality respects the diverse preferences of developers, from those who love hands‑on coding to those who prefer high‑level, AI‑driven prototyping.
Interoperability is another priority. Immens will adopt open, text‑based standards for assets and scene descriptions, enabling seamless integration with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines.
"When files are human‑readable, any AI can parse and manipulate them," Brussee notes. This openness contrasts with many commercial engines that lock users into proprietary ecosystems, making cross‑tool collaboration cumbersome. The broader industry reaction to AI in game creation is mixed. Some commentators on LinkedIn hype the notion of "click‑to‑game" experiences where a single prompt yields a Grand Theft Auto‑scale world.
Immens' team tempers such expectations, positioning AI as a powerful assistant rather than a magical shortcut. Valient emphasizes that AI will make developers better, not replace them, and that responsible use is essential. "Any tool can be misused; it's up to us to guide its application ethically," he says. Economic concerns also surface.
Critics warn that AI‑centric startups may be riding a speculative bubble, with inflated valuations and uncertain long‑term viability. Valient draws a parallel with the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted and flourished.
"We are focused on building a solid engine; AI simply accelerates our development and expands what we can imagine," he asserts. Whether the market is in a bubble remains unknown, but the team is committed to delivering a product that stands on its own merits. Funding for Immens is still in its early stages.
The founders have secured initial commitments but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as "reasonable." Brussee warns against excessive capital, which can breed complacency. "Startups need to stay scrappy; too much money can make you lazy," he laughs. The company remains lean, consisting of the three founders and a handful of collaborators, a deliberate choice to maintain agility while tackling the complex task of building an engine.
Immens is currently developing a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team expected this milestone to take until the end of the year, yet they are already moving at double that speed, aiming to release the demo within the month. This rapid progress underscores the potential of AI to compress development timelines. Regarding the business model, Brussee mentions admiration for Epic Games' revenue‑share approach—"we succeed when you succeed"—but concedes that it is too early to finalize any pricing strategy.
Ultimately, the goal is to empower creators, foster risk‑taking, and spark innovation in games. "We love games and want to see more daring, artistic expressions," Brussee concludes. "If our technology can help bring more ambitious projects to life, that would be amazing."