For years, Unity and Unreal have been the dominant forces in game development, responsible for roughly 70% of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While open‑source alternatives like Godot have gained traction, most large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—leaving the market largely monopolised by the two giants.
Enter Immers, a fledgling studio founded by three industry veterans: Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game‑making powerhouses, spanning Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Together they believe there is still room for a fresh engine that not only competes on features but also re‑imagines how developers build games. 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 an AI‑enhanced engine didn’t exist.
Today, with AI‑assisted programming, we can start from scratch again and deliver full‑functionality much faster," he said. Valient, Immers’ chief technology officer, clarified that the AI they are integrating is not the flashy, prompt‑to‑image kind that dominates headlines.
Instead, it is woven into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. "AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets. If we design the engine with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system or a bespoke gameplay mechanic without wrestling with opaque scripting layers," he noted.
This approach aims to let creators extend the engine quickly, using AI as a productivity amplifier rather than a magic wand. The motivation behind Immers’ AI‑centric engine is the increasingly hostile economics of game development. Brussee described the current climate as "rough," pointing out that production budgets keep inflating while the risk of failure grows.
"We need new ways of working that lower costs, shrink team sizes, and shorten timelines, so studios aren’t gambling their livelihoods on a single title," he argued. De Jong, the chief product officer, observed that the engine landscape has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a stable foundation, the industry now faces challenges that demand innovation, not merely incremental improvement. "The status quo won’t solve the looming crises.
We need a different paradigm," he asserted. One of the pain points De Jong highlighted is the monolithic nature of existing engines.
Developers must conform to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows, which can stifle creativity. With AI, Immers envisions an engine that bends to the developer’s needs rather than the other way around.
"Flexibility is key. You should be able to swap components, append new tools, and tailor the interface to match your personal workflow," he explained. He gave a personal example of building a set of shortcuts and UI elements that perfectly match his background and his team’s requirements. Valient is realistic about AI’s limits.
While he praises its power, he warns that unchecked AI can quickly go off‑track. To mitigate this, Immers is building transparency into the engine: users will see exactly what the AI is doing, retain full control over the process, and have a complete history of changes. This reproducibility, he says, turns what used to be weeks‑long manual tasks into rapid, coffee‑break iterations. "You could generate five unique characters with specific traits in minutes, use the tool a handful of times, then discard it.
That kind of workflow was prohibitively expensive before," he said. Flexibility extends to how much AI a developer chooses to employ. Immers does not impose a single workflow; instead, it offers an open architecture that lets teams decide where AI fits into their pipeline.
"The framework is deliberately agnostic. You decide how much AI you want, and we make sure the AI understands the context correctly," De Jong added.
Interoperability is another cornerstone of Immers’ design. By embracing open, text‑based standards, the engine can seamlessly communicate with tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI system. "When files are human‑readable, any program can parse them.
This opens the door to smarter interfaces across the entire toolchain," Brussee explained. He lamented that many existing engines act as closed ecosystems, hindering collaboration with external software. The broader AI debate in game development is heated.
Some pundits on LinkedIn hype the notion of "click‑to‑game" experiences, claiming that a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale world. Immers acknowledges that such extremes are speculative, positioning AI as a powerful assistant rather than a replacement for human creativity. "AI will make everyone better, not replace them. It’s a tool, and like any tool it can be misused, but it also has the potential to unlock unprecedented artistic expression," Valient said.
Economic concerns also swirl around AI, with many fearing a bubble of over‑valued startups. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted and flourished.
"AI isn’t disappearing. We’re building a solid engine; AI simply accelerates our development and lets us dream bigger," he remarked.
Funding for Immers remains modest. The founders have secured initial commitments but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as "reasonable." Brussee warned against excessive capital, noting that too much money can breed complacency.
"Startups need to stay scrappy; otherwise you lose the edge that drives innovation," he laughed. The team remains tiny—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explained that building a sophisticated engine does not require a million‑person army; a focused, small group can make critical decisions more efficiently. Yet they must balance this lean approach with the need to capture a narrow window of opportunity created by AI’s rise.
Currently, Immers is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release this month. Brussee noted that the project, which began in April, is already progressing twice as fast as initially projected. Regarding the business model, Immers admires Epic’s philosophy of succeeding when its partners succeed, but they consider it premature to commit to a specific revenue structure.
Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower creators to push the medium forward. "We love games and want to see more daring, artistic experiences.
If our technology can help studios take bigger creative risks, that would be amazing," Brussee concluded.