For many years, Unity and Unreal have reigned supreme in the world of video‑game creation, together accounting for roughly 70 % of all titles launched on Steam in 2025. While the open‑source Godot engine has begun to attract attention and a handful of large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a notable example—the market has largely settled into a duopoly dominated by the two giants. Enter Immersive, a fledgling company founded by three seasoned industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient.
Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development, with stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. The trio believes there is still room for a fresh engine that not only competes with the status quo but also addresses the systemic problems that have begun to plague developers. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new platform. “A few years ago the idea of building a brand‑new engine from the ground up seemed unrealistic,” he said.
“Now, with AI‑assisted programming, we can start from scratch again and get functional features up much faster than before.” Valient, Immersive’s chief technology officer, is careful to clarify that their use of artificial intelligence is not about generating assets with a single prompt. Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. “If we design the engine with AI reasoning in mind, even a solo developer can add a custom particle system, a bespoke animation pipeline, or any other feature without being constrained to a limited scripting layer,” he explained.
“The AI helps you extend the engine quickly, but the developer remains in control of what is built.” The motivation behind this ambitious project is the increasingly hostile economic environment for game makers. Brussee described the current climate as “rough,” noting that production budgets are ballooning and the risk of failure is higher than ever. “We need new ways of working that cut costs, reduce team size, and accelerate timelines,” he argued. “If we can harness AI to streamline repetitive tasks, smaller studios can compete without jeopardising their livelihoods.” De Jong, the chief product officer, echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the engine landscape has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While a stable foundation is valuable, the industry now faces challenges that cannot be solved by simply polishing existing tools. “We need genuine innovation, not more of the same,” he said. “Our goal is to break the monolithic approach that forces developers to adapt to rigid, proprietary pipelines.” One of the pain points with current engines is their reliance on closed file formats and inflexible workflows. De Jong envisions an engine that molds itself to the developer’s needs rather than the other way around.
“Flexibility is key,” he asserted. “You should be able to swap modules, append new functionality, and build custom interfaces that match your personal workflow—whether that means specific shortcuts, unique UI layouts, or specialized toolsets.” Valient acknowledges that AI, while powerful, can be unpredictable if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immersive is building transparency into the system: every AI‑driven action is logged, reproducible, and fully auditable. “You’ll always know what the engine did, why it did it, and you can roll back or tweak the process as needed,” he said.
This level of control is intended to keep the creative process trustworthy, allowing developers to generate, for example, five distinct characters with a particular trait in minutes rather than weeks. The architecture of Immersive’s engine deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow.
De Jong emphasized that teams can decide how much AI assistance they want and where to apply it. “The framework is modular, so you can plug in AI where it makes sense and rely on traditional coding elsewhere,” he noted. “The challenge is ensuring the AI understands the context correctly, which is why we’re focusing on robust training data and clear interfaces.” Interoperability is another cornerstone of the project. By embracing open, text‑based standards, Immersive aims to make the engine play nicely with the broader ecosystem of tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines.
“When files are human‑readable, any program can parse them,” Brussee explained. “That means the AI can read, modify, and generate assets across different applications without the friction of proprietary lock‑ins.” The conversation around AI in game development is often polarized. Some commentators on LinkedIn sensationalize the technology, claiming that a single prompt could soon spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience.
Immersive’s team, while not dismissing the long‑term vision of “click‑to‑play” engines, insists that AI should be treated as a tool that amplifies human creativity rather than replaces it. “AI makes everyone better,” Valient said. “It’s disruptive, yes, but that disruption can lead to richer, more diverse games if we handle it responsibly.” Economic concerns also swirl around the AI boom, with critics warning of a valuation bubble.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many startups will fail, the underlying technology persists. “AI isn’t going away,” he asserted. “The internet survived its bubble, and so will AI. Our focus is on building a solid engine that stands on its own merits, using AI to accelerate development and inspire bigger dreams.” Funding for Immersive remains modest at this stage.
The founders have secured initial commitments but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee cautioned against over‑capitalization, warning that excess cash can breed complacency. “Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. “Too much money can make you lazy, and we want to keep the lean, iterative mindset that fuels innovation.” The company’s headcount reflects this philosophy: only the three founders and a handful of auxiliary contributors are currently on board.
De Jong explained the delicate balance between team size and project complexity. “You can’t throw a million engineers at an engine and expect it to magically work,” he said.
“A focused, small team can make deliberate decisions and iterate faster, especially when you have a narrow window of opportunity driven by industry shifts and AI advancements.” Immersive is now racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a full editing workflow powered by generative AI. The team originally projected a year‑long development timeline, but they are already moving at double that speed. “We aimed for an end‑of‑year release when we started in April, and now we’re on track to demo this month,” Brussee reported.
This rapid progress underscores the potential productivity gains the engine promises. Regarding the business model, Brussee mentioned admiration for Epic Games’ revenue‑share approach—where the platform succeeds when its users succeed—but admitted that it is still too early to commit to a specific strategy. The ultimate goal, he said, is to empower creators to push the medium forward.
In closing, Brussee expressed a hopeful vision for the future of games. “We love games as an art form and we want to see more risk‑taking, more creativity, more innovation,” he said. “If Immersive can provide the tools that let developers realize bold ideas without prohibitive costs, that would be amazing for the whole industry."