Unity and Unreal have long held sway over the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70% of the titles that appeared on Steam in 2025. While Godot has enjoyed notable growth in recent years and some studios—such as Capcom with its proprietary RE Engine—still cling to in‑house solutions, the market has largely been a duopoly. Into this entrenched arena step three seasoned veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who have launched Immens with a bold claim: there is still room for a fresh engine, and it can be built with the help of artificial intelligence. The founders bring a résumé that reads like a Who’s Who of modern gaming.
Brussee helped shape the original Unity, De Jong contributed to the acclaimed Horizon series at Guerrilla Games, and Valient’s experience spans Epic Games, Boss Key, and even Apple’s internal tools. Their collective background gives them a unique perspective on why the status quo may be ripe for disruption.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee noted that the timing feels right for a new engine because "the technology that didn’t exist a couple of years ago is now mature enough to be leveraged." According to Brussee, AI‑assisted programming can revive the era of building engines from the ground up, offering developers a level of guidance and control that accelerates the delivery of full‑featured tools. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, stresses that the AI they employ is not about generating content from vague prompts. Instead, it is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible.
"AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets," he explains. "If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even solo creators or small teams can plug in custom systems—like a bespoke particle effect—without wrestling with rigid scripting layers." The motivation behind Immens is rooted in the current economic pressures of game development. Brussee describes the environment as "rough" and warns that production costs keep climbing, making it harder for studios to stay afloat.
He asks whether new workflows can break this cycle, allowing teams to produce high‑quality experiences with fewer people, tighter budgets, and shorter timelines. De Jong, the chief product officer, adds that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has provided a solid foundation, the industry now needs genuine innovation rather than incremental refinements. One of the pain points De Jong highlights is the "monolithic" nature of existing engines.
Developers often must conform to proprietary file formats and workflows that limit creativity. With AI, Immens aims to flip that script: the engine should adapt to the developer, not the other way around.
"Flexibility is key," he says. "You should be able to swap components, extend functionality, and craft tools that match your personal workflow—down to the exact shortcuts and UI layout you prefer." Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it can dramatically speed up tasks, it can also produce erratic results if left unchecked. Immens therefore puts the user in the driver’s seat, offering full transparency into what the AI is doing, its decision history, and the ability to reproduce outcomes reliably.
He illustrates this with a hypothetical: creating five characters with a specific trait used to require weeks of planning; now a developer could prototype the concept over a coffee break, run it through the AI‑augmented tool, and iterate rapidly, discarding the temporary scripts once the job is done. This on‑demand, disposable workflow could slash costs that were once prohibitive. The platform’s design deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow.
De Jong emphasizes that Immens provides a framework and architecture that let users decide how much AI to incorporate and where. This modularity is reinforced by the use of open standards. Brussee points out that when files are stored as plain text, any tool—including AI—can read and manipulate them.
By aligning with emerging open standards, Immens hopes to play nicely with industry staples such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. "It’s about creating smarter interfaces that can talk to each other," he says, noting that many current engines act as closed ecosystems that resist such interoperability. The broader conversation around AI in game development is polarized.
Some commentators on LinkedIn predict a future where a single prompt can spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, sparking fear of a "click‑to‑game" apocalypse. Immens’s team tempers those extremes, insisting that AI should be viewed as a powerful tool, not a replacement for human creativity.
Valient believes AI will elevate the entire industry, making developers better at their craft, while De Jong stresses the ethical responsibility to wield the technology responsibly. Economic anxieties also swirl around the AI boom, with many questioning whether the sector is a bubble.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying internet survived and flourished. He argues that Immens is focused on building a genuinely useful engine; AI merely accelerates its development and expands its creative horizons.
Whether the market is in a bubble remains uncertain, but the team is confident that a solid product will endure regardless of hype cycles. Funding for Immens is still in its early stages. The founders have secured "first commitments" but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the target amount as "reasonable." Brussee warns against over‑funding, noting that excessive capital can breed complacency and erode the scrappy mindset essential for a startup.
The company remains lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explains that building an engine is a complex undertaking that cannot be outsourced to a massive team; a focused, small group can make deliberate decisions and iterate more nimbly. At the same time, they must balance the need for sufficient resources to seize the narrow window of opportunity presented by AI’s rise.
Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team aims to release this demo within the month, a timeline that has already outpaced their original expectations.
Brussee notes that what was projected to take until the end of the year is now slated for delivery in half that time, underscoring the speed gains AI can provide. The business model remains under discussion. While Immens appreciates Epic Games' "we succeed when you succeed" licensing philosophy, they consider it premature to commit to a specific revenue structure. Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower creators to push the medium forward, fostering more risk‑taking, artistic expression, and innovation.
"We love games and want to see more daring, creative work," Brussee says. "If our technology can help make that happen, it would be amazing."