For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game creation, together accounting for roughly 70% of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made notable strides recently and some major studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been monopolised by those two giants. Against this backdrop, three seasoned developers—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have founded Immersive (Immens) with the conviction that there is still space for a fresh engine that improves on the status quo.
The trio’s résumés read like a who’s‑who of the industry: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Their combined expertise fuels a belief that a new, AI‑enhanced engine can offer something the current market lacks. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right: “There’s an opportunity now to build a new engine that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.” He added that AI‑assisted programming makes it possible to start from a clean slate while still maintaining tight guidance and control, enabling rapid delivery of full‑featured tools.
Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, stresses that the AI they employ is not about generating content from a single prompt, but about constructing an engine architecture that is inherently extensible. “AI can reason over large codebases and data sets,” he said.
“If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in custom systems—say, a bespoke particle system—without being confined to a narrow scripting layer.” This philosophy aims to let creators harness AI to accelerate extensions rather than replace the development process. The motivation behind Immens is also rooted in the current economic climate of game development.
Brussee described the environment as “rough,” noting that production costs keep climbing and that many studios struggle to stay viable. He argued that new workflows powered by AI could break this cycle by allowing smaller teams to produce high‑quality games faster and with tighter budgets, thereby reducing financial risk for developers and publishers alike. De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine landscape has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While that consolidation has provided a stable foundation, he believes the industry now needs genuine innovation rather than more of the same. He criticized the “monolithic approach” of existing engines, which forces developers to adapt to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines.
With AI, De Jong envisions an engine that molds itself to the user’s needs, offering interchangeable modules, custom tools, and personalized interfaces that match each developer’s workflow. Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. It is “really powerful,” but can also “go off the rails quickly if you don’t pay attention.” To mitigate this, Immens is built to keep users in full control: the engine logs its actions, provides reproducible histories, and lets creators craft bespoke utilities for specific tasks.
He illustrated this with a scenario where generating five characters with particular traits used to take weeks; now, with AI‑driven tooling, a developer could sketch the concept over coffee and have a functional prototype ready in minutes, dramatically cutting costs. Flexibility is a core tenet of Immens’ design. De Jong emphasized that the platform does not impose a single workflow; instead, it supplies a framework that can be shaped by the developer, including the degree to which AI is integrated.
The architecture is deliberately open, leveraging text‑based file formats and industry‑wide open standards. This openness means that tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI system can communicate seamlessly with the engine, avoiding the “weird outlier” problem where proprietary engines act as closed ecosystems. The conversation around AI in game development is polarized.
Some commentators on LinkedIn hype the notion of “click‑to‑game” engines that could produce Grand Theft Auto‑scale experiences from a single prompt. Immens’ team tempers such expectations, positioning AI as a powerful assistant rather than a magic button. Valient believes AI will make both blockbuster and indie creators better, but warns that the technology’s disruptive nature can generate negative sentiment when people feel their craft is being threatened.
Economic concerns also swirl, with many questioning whether AI‑focused startups are part of a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying internet persisted and the surviving firms thrived because they built solid products. Immens aims to be one of those enduring solutions: a high‑quality engine that uses AI to speed development and enable bigger creative dreams, regardless of market hype. Funding remains modest.
Immens has secured its “first commitments” but has not disclosed amounts, describing the target as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑funding, saying it can breed complacency and diminish the scrappy spirit needed for a startup. The company currently consists of the three founders plus a handful of helpers, a deliberately lean structure that allows rapid decision‑making while avoiding the pitfalls of a massive, unwieldy team. Immens is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release this month.
The timeline has already outpaced their original expectations: what was projected to take until year‑end is now arriving roughly twice as fast. While the long‑term business model is still under discussion, Brussee admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” philosophy but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific revenue strategy. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will empower creators to push the boundaries of interactive art.
“We love games and want to see more creativity, more risk‑taking,” Brussee concluded. “If our technology can help spark innovation in the industry, that would be amazing.”