For years, Unity and Unreal have reigned supreme in game creation, accounting for roughly 70% of all titles launched on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some majors cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been a duopoly. Yet three seasoned developers, Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient, have founded Immersive Technologies (Immens) with the conviction that there is still room for a fresh engine and, more importantly, for genuine improvement. The trio’s résumés read like a who's‑who of the gaming world: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Their combined expertise fuels a bold challenge to the entrenched giants. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee asserted that the timing is now ideal for a new engine, one that simply didn’t exist a few years ago.
He believes AI‑assisted programming can revive the ability to build systems from the ground up, offering “full functionality fast” under guided control. Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, clarifies that the AI they employ is not the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑content” variety. Instead, it serves as a structural aid, making the engine highly extensible.
"AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets," he explains. "If we design the architecture with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom features—say, a bespoke particle system—without being confined to limited scripting. The AI helps them extend the engine quickly and safely." The motivation behind Immens stems from the current climate of the games market, which Brussee describes as "rough." Development costs are soaring, and the risk of failure is increasingly high.
He argues that new, more efficient workflows are essential to break the cycle of ever‑larger budgets and larger teams. By leveraging AI, Immens hopes to lower barriers, enabling studios to produce high‑quality games with fewer people and in less time, thereby protecting livelihoods and fostering creative risk‑taking.
De Jong, the chief product officer, points out that the engine landscape has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a stable foundation, the industry now faces a suite of challenges that demand innovation rather than incremental refinement. He criticizes the "monolithic approach" of existing engines, which force developers to adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines. With AI, Immens aims to deliver a system that bends to the user’s needs, allowing interchangeable modules, custom tools, and personalized interfaces tailored to each developer’s workflow.
Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens. De Jong envisions a scenario where a developer can craft tools that match their exact shortcuts, features, and UI preferences, thereby streamlining the production process. Valient acknowledges AI’s power but warns that, unchecked, it can veer off course.
To mitigate this, Immens is built to keep users in the driver’s seat: the engine logs its actions, provides transparent histories, and ensures repeatable results. This level of control lets creators generate assets—like a set of five characters with specific traits—in minutes rather than weeks, dramatically reducing cost while preserving creative intent. The platform does not impose a single workflow.
Instead, it offers a modular architecture that lets teams decide how much AI to integrate and where. Brussee emphasizes the importance of open standards: by using text‑based file formats, any compatible tool—whether Blender, Maya, or a generative AI system—can read and write data seamlessly.
This openness counters the “weird outlier” problem where many engines act as closed ecosystems, hindering interoperability. Public sentiment toward AI in game development is mixed.
Some commentators on LinkedIn hype a future where a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, sparking fear of a "click‑to‑game" utopia. Immens’ founders temper such expectations, insisting that AI should be viewed as a powerful tool, not a magical shortcut.
Valient believes AI will elevate the entire industry, making developers more capable, while De Jong stresses responsible usage, noting that any technology can be misused if left unchecked. Economic concerns also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the sector is a bubble inflated by speculative valuations. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: the internet didn’t disappear, but numerous over‑valued companies fell, leaving the robust technologies behind.
Immens aims to be one of those lasting products, focusing on building a solid engine first, using AI to accelerate development and inspire bigger dreams. Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its "first commitments" but has not disclosed amounts, describing the target as "reasonable." Brussee warns against excessive capital, noting that abundant cash can breed complacency and reduce the scrappy mindset essential for a startup.
The team remains lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—by design, believing that a small, focused group can make decisive architectural choices without the overhead of a massive staff. Currently, Immens is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release later this month. The timeline has already outpaced their original estimate of completing the prototype by year‑end, highlighting the speed gains they claim AI can deliver.
Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic’s philosophy of succeeding when developers succeed, but admits it is too early to finalize revenue strategies. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will empower creators to push the boundaries of interactive art, fostering more experimentation and richer experiences.
As Brussee puts it, "We love games, we love complex artistic expression, and we want to see more creativity and risk‑taking. If our technology can help make that happen, that would be amazing."