For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces shaping game development, accounting for roughly 70% of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have enjoyed notable growth, most large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—leaving Unity and Unreal with a near‑monopoly on the market.
Enter Immens, a startup founded by three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who believe there is still space for a fresh engine that addresses the shortcomings of the status quo. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game development: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Together they aim to challenge the entrenched giants with a platform built around artificial intelligence. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because “the tools that existed a couple of years ago simply aren’t enough anymore.” He argues that AI‑assisted programming can rekindle the ability to start projects from a clean slate while still providing the guidance and control developers need to ship functional products quickly. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, stresses that the AI component is not about generating content via vague prompts.
Instead, it focuses on making the engine itself highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he says. “If we design the architecture with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom systems—like a bespoke particle engine—without being confined to a limited scripting layer.” This philosophy underpins Immens’s goal to let creators extend the engine faster and more intuitively. The motivation behind the project is rooted in the current economic climate of the games industry, which Brussee describes as “rough.” Development costs continue to climb, making it increasingly difficult for small studios to survive.
He asks whether new workflows can break this cycle, reduce budgets, and enable faster production with fewer people, thereby protecting creators’ livelihoods. De Jong, the chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has provided a solid foundation, he believes the industry now needs genuine innovation rather than more of the same. He criticizes the “monolithic approach” of existing engines, where developers must adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines.
With AI, he envisions an engine that molds itself to the developer’s needs, offering interchangeable modules, custom tools, and personalized interfaces tailored to each project. Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword: it is incredibly powerful but can “go off the rails” if not carefully supervised.
Immens therefore aims to keep users in full control, providing transparent histories of AI actions so that workflows remain repeatable and auditable. He illustrates this with a scenario where a designer could generate five unique characters with specific traits in the time it takes to sip coffee, then discard the temporary tool after use—something that previously would have required weeks of manual effort.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’s architecture. De Jong emphasizes that the platform does not impose a single workflow; developers decide how much AI to incorporate and where.
The engine also embraces open standards, allowing text‑based files to be read and manipulated by any compatible software. Brussee notes that this openness enables seamless integration with tools like Blender, Maya, or other generative pipelines, eliminating the “weird outlier” problem where proprietary engines resist interoperability.
The broader conversation around AI in game development is heated, with some commentators warning of a future where a simple prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience. Immens’s team acknowledges the hype but frames AI as a tool—not a magic button.
Valient believes AI will make developers better, even if the term currently carries negative connotations due to its disruptive scale. Economic anxieties also surface, especially concerns that AI‑focused startups are inflating a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, arguing that while many companies will fall, the underlying technology endures.
“AI isn’t going away,” he says, “and the good products that solve real problems will survive.” Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its “first commitments,” but the founders are vague about the exact amount, describing it as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency and reduce the scrappy mindset needed for a startup. The company remains lean—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design.
De Jong explains that building a sophisticated engine does not require a massive team; a focused group can make deliberate decisions and iterate effectively. Yet they must balance this lean approach with the need to capture a narrow window of opportunity created by AI’s rise. Immens is currently developing a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing flow, slated for release later this month.
The timeline has already outpaced their original projection: what was expected to take until year‑end is now arriving roughly twice as fast. Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic Games’ philosophy of succeeding when developers succeed, but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific strategy. Ultimately, the team hopes Immens will empower creators to push the artistic and technical boundaries of games, fostering more risk‑taking and innovation in the medium. As Brussee puts it, “We love games, we love complex expressions of the art form, and we want to see more creativity.
If our technology can help make that happen, that would be amazing.”