For many years, the game‑development landscape has been dominated by two heavyweight engines: Unity and Unreal. In 2025, roughly seventy percent of all titles launched on Steam were built with one of those platforms. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have enjoyed a surge in popularity, and a handful of large studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prominent example—the market share of Unity and Unreal remains overwhelmingly large. Against this backdrop, three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have decided that there is still room for a fresh engine, and that the existing solutions can be improved.
Their new company, Immens, brings together experience from some of the most influential studios and technology firms in the world, including Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and Apple. The trio believes that their combined expertise gives them a unique perspective on how to challenge the status quo. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine: “There’s an opportunity now that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. With AI‑assisted programming, you can start building things from the ground up again, under a lot of guidance and control, and you can get full functionality very quickly.” Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are leveraging is not the kind of generative, prompt‑driven magic that dominates headlines.
Instead, the AI is embedded in the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. “AI can reason about large amounts of data and source code,” he said. “If we design the engine with that in mind, even a solo developer or a tiny team can add custom systems—like a bespoke particle system—without being limited to a handful of scripting hooks. The AI helps you extend the engine faster, not replace the developer.” The motivation behind Immens’ AI‑powered engine is rooted in the current economic pressures of game development.
Brussee described the environment as “rough,” noting that production costs keep climbing and that many studios struggle to stay viable. “We need new ways of working that lower costs and let smaller teams ship games faster with fewer resources,” he argued.
“If we can break the cycle of ever‑increasing budgets, we protect the livelihood of creators and studios alike.” De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine market has become highly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a solid foundation for developers, it also means the industry is facing a set of challenges that cannot be solved by simply iterating on existing tools. “We need innovation, not more standardisation,” he said. “The current engines take a monolithic approach—developers must adapt to proprietary file formats and workflows.
With AI, we envision an engine that adapts to the developer, not the other way around.” Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens’ design philosophy. De Jong explained that users should be able to swap components, append new functionality, and craft bespoke tools that match their personal workflows. “Imagine being able to build a toolset with the exact shortcuts, UI layout, and features that suit your team’s needs,” he said.
“That level of customization is what we aim to enable.” Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can behave unpredictably if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immens is building transparency into the engine: users will always know what the AI is doing, can review its decision history, and can reproduce results reliably. “You might need to generate five characters with a specific trait,” he illustrated.
“In the past that could take weeks; now you could prototype it over coffee, reuse the tool a handful of times, and discard it when you’re done. That speed and precision is what makes the approach compelling.” The architecture of Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow on its users. De Jong emphasized that the framework is meant to be agnostic: developers decide how much AI to involve and where to apply it, while the underlying system ensures the AI’s outputs remain understandable and controllable. This openness extends to file formats as well.
Brussee highlighted the importance of open standards: “When files are text‑based, any tool can read them. The AI can parse those files and act on them.
By embracing open standards, we make it easy to plug in software like Blender, Maya, or any generative tool, because everything speaks the same language.” The broader conversation about AI in game development is often polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn hype the idea of “click‑to‑game” engines that could produce Grand Theft Auto‑scale experiences from a single prompt.
Immens’ team acknowledges that such visions may eventually materialise, but for now they view AI strictly as a tool that amplifies human creativity. “Big games will still be made by people, but AI will make everyone better,” Valient said.
“The technology is disruptive, which is why it carries negative connotations now, but responsible use can turn it into a force for good.” Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many fearing a bubble of over‑valued startups. Valient compared the situation to the dot‑com era: “Is AI going away? No.
The internet didn’t disappear after the bubble burst; many companies fell, but the underlying technology survived and thrived. We’re focused on building a solid engine; AI just accelerates our development and lets us dream bigger.” Immens has not disclosed a specific funding amount, only that it has secured its “first commitments” and that the capital sought is “reasonable.” Brussee cautioned against over‑funding, noting that too much cash can lead to complacency.
“Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. “If you have endless money, you risk becoming lazy.” The company remains tiny—just the three founders and a handful of helpers.
This lean structure is intentional, as De Jong explained: “Building an engine is complex; you can’t throw a million engineers at it and expect miracles. You need a small, focused team to make critical decisions and iterate quickly.
At the same time, there’s a narrow window of opportunity as AI reshapes the industry. We have to balance enough resources to hit that window without over‑staffing.” Immens is currently developing 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 has already outpaced the founders’ original expectations. “When we started in April, we thought we’d be ready by year‑end,” Brussee recalled. “We’re now roughly twice as fast as we anticipated, which makes it hard to give precise dates.” The business model is still taking shape. While Immens admires Epic Games’ “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy, the team admits it’s too early to commit to a specific revenue structure.
Ultimately, Brussee hopes the engine will enable creators to push the medium forward: “We love games and the complex artistic expressions they enable. We want to see more creativity, more risk‑taking, and more innovation built on technology like ours. That would be amazing."