Unity and Unreal have long held sway over the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70% of all Steam releases in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some studios—such as Capcom with its RE Engine—continue to rely on proprietary solutions, the market has largely been a duopoly. Against this backdrop, three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have founded Immens with a belief that there is still space for a fresh engine that addresses the shortcomings of the status quo.
The founders’ résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee argued that the timing is now right for a new platform that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. He points to the rise of AI‑assisted programming as a catalyst that could let developers start from a clean slate and assemble fully‑functional tools far more quickly than before.
Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI component is not about generating assets through vague prompts. Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. "AI can reason over large codebases and data sets," he explains.
"If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system, a bespoke animation pipeline, or any other feature without being confined to a limited scripting layer. The AI acts as an accelerator for extension, not a magic wand that creates finished content on command." The motivation behind Immens is rooted in the current economic pressures of game development. Brussee describes the environment as "rough"—production budgets are inflating, timelines are stretching, and the risk of financial ruin is high for small studios. He asks whether new workflows can break this cycle, enabling teams to deliver games faster, with fewer people, and on tighter budgets.
De Jong, the chief product officer, echoes this sentiment, noting that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While that standardisation offers a stable foundation, it also stifles innovation. "We need a different approach, not more of the same," he says. One of the pain points De Jong identifies in existing engines is their monolithic nature.
Developers must conform to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines, which can impede creativity. With AI‑driven flexibility, Immens aims to let the engine adapt to the developer rather than the other way around. "You should be able to swap components, append new modules, or craft entirely custom tools that match your personal workflow," he explains. For instance, a designer could build a UI that mirrors their own shortcut preferences, visual style, and project‑specific requirements, all without fighting the engine’s default conventions.
Valient is candid about AI’s limits. While the technology is "really powerful," it can also veer off course if left unchecked.
Immens therefore emphasizes transparency and control: users can see exactly what the AI is doing, review its decision history, and ensure repeatable results. This level of oversight turns AI from a black box into a collaborative partner.
As Valient puts it, a task that once took weeks—such as generating five characters with a particular trait—could now be prototyped over a coffee break, then refined or discarded as needed, dramatically reducing cost. Flexibility is baked into Immens’s core design.
The engine does not enforce a single workflow; developers decide how much AI assistance they want and where to apply it. De Jong stresses that the underlying framework must be robust enough to support a spectrum of usage patterns, from heavily AI‑augmented pipelines to more traditional, manual approaches.
Moreover, Immens is being built on open standards, ensuring seamless interoperability with tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI suite. "When files are text‑based, any program can read them," Brussee notes. "That openness lets the AI parse and manipulate assets directly, creating smarter interfaces across the entire toolchain." The broader industry conversation about AI is polarized. Some commentators on platforms like LinkedIn hype the idea of "click‑to‑game" engines that could produce GTA‑scale experiences from a single prompt.
Immens’s team acknowledges that such extremes are speculative, viewing AI primarily as an empowering tool rather than a replacement for human creativity. Valient believes AI will elevate the overall quality of games because it makes developers more capable, even if it currently carries negative connotations due to its disruptive pace. Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with fears of a valuation bubble.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, asserting that while many AI startups may fall, the underlying technology will persist and mature. "We’re focused on building a solid engine; AI simply accelerates our vision," he says. The founders have secured initial funding commitments but have not disclosed amounts, preferring a modest capital base to avoid the complacency that can accompany excess cash.
Immens remains a lean operation—just the three founders and a handful of helpers. This small size is intentional; building a sophisticated engine requires careful decision‑making that cannot be rushed by throwing a massive team at the problem.
At the same time, they recognise a narrow window of opportunity as AI reshapes the industry, and they are balancing the need for sufficient resources against the risk of over‑staffing. The team is currently developing 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 has already outpaced their original estimate of completing it by year‑end.
Brussee admits that predicting exact schedules is difficult, but the early acceleration bodes well for their roadmap. Regarding the business model, Immens is still exploring options. While they admire Epic Games’ philosophy of succeeding when their partners succeed, they consider it premature to announce concrete pricing or licensing structures.
Ultimately, Brussee hopes Immens will enable creators to push artistic boundaries, take greater risks, and inject fresh innovation into the medium they love. "We want to see more creativity, more daring projects, and we hope our technology can be the foundation for that next wave of groundbreaking games," he concludes.