For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the go‑to tools for game creators, accounting for roughly 70% of the titles that appeared on Steam in 2025. While Godot has made noticeable strides recently and some large publishers cling to proprietary solutions such as Capcom’s RE Engine, the market has largely been monopolised by the two giants. Enter Immens, a fledgling venture founded by three seasoned veterans – Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient – who believe there is still space for a fresh engine that improves on the status quo.
Their résumés read like a who's‑who of the industry, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they aim to challenge the entrenched players with a platform built around artificial intelligence. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine that simply didn’t exist a few years ago. “With AI‑assisted programming, you can start building from scratch again,” he said.
“Guided by strong controls, you can get full‑featured functionality up and running quickly.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, is quick to clarify that the AI they are using is not the kind that generates assets from a single prompt. Instead, it is a reasoning engine that makes the underlying codebase highly extensible. “If we design the engine with AI in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can plug in custom systems – say, a bespoke particle system – without being limited to a narrow scripting layer,” he explained. “The AI helps you extend the engine faster, not replace the creative process.” The motivation behind this AI‑powered tool is the increasingly hostile economics of game development.
Brussee describes the current climate as “rough,” noting that production budgets are swelling and the risk of failure is rising. “We need new ways of working that cut costs and let smaller teams ship games faster, with fewer people and lower financial exposure,” he argued.
De Jong, the chief product officer, sees the engine market as having become overly standardized and consolidated. While that consolidation has provided a solid foundation, he believes the industry now demands genuine innovation. “Continuing to do exactly what we’ve always done won’t solve the challenges we face,” he said.
“We need a different approach, not just another monolithic engine that forces developers to adapt to its proprietary formats.” Flexibility is at the heart of Immens’s philosophy. De Jong envisions an engine that can be reshaped on the fly: “You should be able to swap components, add new tools, and tailor the interface to match your workflow. I can build a toolset that mirrors my own background, complete with the shortcuts and features my team needs.” Valient also warns that AI, while powerful, can quickly go off‑track if left unchecked. Immens therefore emphasizes transparency and control.
“When you use the engine, you always know what it’s doing and why,” he said. “You can trace its history, reproduce results, and create bespoke utilities for very specific tasks – like generating five characters with a particular trait in minutes instead of weeks.” The platform does not enforce a single workflow. De Jong stresses that developers decide how much AI to employ and where to apply it, provided the system can interpret their intentions correctly.
To facilitate seamless integration with existing pipelines, Immens adopts open standards and text‑based file formats. “If a file is readable as text, any tool can parse it,” Brussee noted. “That means Blender, Maya, generative‑art tools, or our own utilities can plug in effortlessly, because they all speak the same open‑standard language.” There is a vocal backlash against AI in game creation, often fueled by sensational claims that a single prompt could produce a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience. Immens’s team acknowledges the hype but frames AI as a tool rather than a magic button.
“One day we might see ‘click‑to‑game’ engines, but for now AI is a productivity enhancer that makes developers better,” Valient said. “It’s disruptive, which is why it feels uncomfortable, but that disruption is necessary.” Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the sector is a bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: “The internet didn’t disappear when the bubble burst; only the unsustainable businesses vanished. Good technology and solid products survive.
We’re building a strong engine; AI just accelerates our dreaming and execution.” Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its first round of commitments but has not disclosed amounts, describing the target as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑capitalisation, noting that excess cash can breed complacency. “Start‑ups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. The company remains lean – the three founders plus a handful of helpers – by design.
De Jong explains the trade‑off: “You can’t throw a million engineers at an engine and expect it to work. You need a focused team to make deliberate decisions, yet you also need enough resources to hit the narrow window of opportunity presented by AI’s rise.” Immens is currently building 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 estimate; what they thought would take until year‑end is now arriving roughly twice as fast. Regarding the business model, Brussee admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” licensing philosophy but admits it’s too early to commit to a specific approach. Ultimately, he hopes Immens will enable creators to push the medium forward.
“We love games and the complex artistic expression they embody,” he said. “We want more creativity, more risk‑taking, and more innovation built on technology like ours.
That would be amazing."