For many years, the game‑development landscape has been dominated by two heavyweight engines: Unity and Unreal. In 2025, roughly 70 % of all titles launched on Steam were built with one of these platforms. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have made noticeable strides, and a handful of large publishers continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market share of Unity and Unreal remains largely unchallenged. Enter Immens, a fledgling studio founded by three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who believe there is still room for a fresh engine that addresses the shortcomings of today’s dominant tools.
Their résumés read like a roll‑call of gaming’s elite: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together, they are setting out to build a platform that leverages artificial intelligence not as a gimmick, but as a foundational design principle. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because “the possibilities that didn’t exist a couple of years ago are now within reach thanks to AI‑supported programming.” He envisions a development environment where, under clear guidance, developers can assemble fully‑functional prototypes at a speed previously reserved for large studios.
The promise is to let creators start from a clean slate and let AI assist in stitching together code, assets, and systems without the usual bottlenecks. Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, stresses that their approach to AI differs from the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑content” narrative that circulates on social media.
Instead of treating AI as a magic wand that conjures entire games from a single sentence, Immens uses AI to make the engine itself highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he notes. “If we architect 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 specialized tool without wrestling with opaque scripting layers.” This philosophy aims to empower smaller teams to extend the engine organically, rather than being confined to a rigid set of built‑in features. The motivation behind this ambitious project stems from a bleak view of the current market.
Brussee describes the environment as “rough,” pointing out that game production costs continue to climb, making it increasingly difficult for independent studios to survive. He asks, “How can we break out of that cycle?
Can we discover more efficient workflows that let us deliver high‑quality experiences with fewer people, less time, and smaller budgets?” The answer, according to Immens, lies in marrying AI‑driven automation with a flexible, open architecture. De Jong, the chief product officer, observes that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While this has given developers a reliable foundation, it has also stifled innovation. “We’re at a point where the industry faces a host of challenges, and simply repeating the old methods won’t cut it,” he says. “What we need now is genuine innovation, not more of the same.” He criticizes the “monolithic” nature of existing engines, which force developers to adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines.
With AI, Immens aims to flip that script, offering an engine that molds itself to the user’s needs. Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens’ design.
De Jong explains that developers should be able to swap, append, or modify components at will, crafting tools that match their personal workflows. “Imagine being able to build an interface with exactly the shortcuts, features, and layout that your team requires, without waiting for the engine vendor to implement them,” he says. This level of customization, powered by AI that can understand and manipulate code, could dramatically reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks. Valient also warns that AI, while powerful, can quickly veer off course if left unchecked.
To mitigate this risk, Immens is built with transparency in mind: users will always see what the engine is doing, retain a full history of changes, and be able to reproduce results reliably. He illustrates the potential with a simple example: creating five characters with a specific trait used to take weeks of planning and manual work. With AI‑assisted tools, a developer could sketch the idea over a coffee break, generate the assets, and then discard the temporary tool after use—something that was previously prohibitively expensive. The platform does not enforce a single workflow.
De Jong stresses that the architecture is deliberately agnostic, allowing teams to decide how much AI to incorporate and where. “We want the framework to be a sandbox, not a straight‑jacket,” he says.
This openness extends to file formats as well. By embracing text‑based, open standards, Immens ensures that files can be read and processed by any compatible software, from Blender and Maya to future generative‑AI tools. Brussee points out that when data is stored in human‑readable formats, the AI can parse, transform, and integrate it seamlessly, fostering a more interconnected development ecosystem.
The broader conversation about AI in game creation is fraught with both excitement and backlash. Some commentators on LinkedIn predict a future where a single prompt can spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fueling fears of a “click‑to‑game” era that could undermine craftsmanship. Immens’ team acknowledges these concerns but frames AI as a collaborative instrument rather than a replacement for human creativity.
Valient believes that AI will elevate the entire industry, making developers more capable and enabling risk‑taking that was previously out of reach. Economic anxieties also linger, especially given the recent surge of AI‑focused startups and the specter of a valuation bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com boom, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted and flourished.
He argues that Immens is focused on building a genuinely useful engine; AI merely accelerates the development process and expands the horizon of what can be imagined. Whether the AI market is a bubble remains uncertain, but the team is committed to delivering a product that stands on its own merits.
Funding for Immens is still in its early stages. The founders have secured “first commitments” but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑capitalization, noting that excess cash can breed complacency. The company intentionally remains lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—because building an engine is a complex, iterative endeavor that benefits from focused, scrappy teams rather than massive, unwieldy groups.
Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The goal is to release this demo within the month, a timeline that has already outpaced their original expectations.
Brussee admits that predicting exact milestones is difficult, but the rapid progress underscores the potential of AI‑enhanced development pipelines. The business model is still under discussion.
While Immens admires Epic Games’ philosophy of “we succeed when you succeed,” the founders acknowledge that it is too early to commit to a specific revenue structure. Their primary ambition is to empower creators to push the medium forward, fostering more artistic expression, experimentation, and risk‑taking. In summary, Immens aims to reshape the game‑engine landscape by delivering an AI‑centric, highly extensible platform that reduces cost, accelerates iteration, and puts creative control back into the hands of developers—big and small alike. If successful, it could signal the beginning of a new era where the industry moves beyond the entrenched cycles of ever‑increasing budgets and instead embraces smarter, more adaptable tools for building the games of tomorrow.