Unity and Unreal have long held sway over the game‑development landscape, accounting for roughly 70% of Steam releases in 2025. While Godot has made noticeable strides in recent years and some major studios cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the duopoly of Unity and Unreal still dominates the market. Enter Immersive (Immens), the brainchild of three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—who believe there is still room for a fresh engine and, more importantly, for meaningful improvement. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game‑tech powerhouses, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and Apple.
Together they aim to challenge the status quo. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because “the tools that existed a couple of years ago simply don’t meet today’s needs.” He argues that AI‑assisted programming now makes it feasible to start building a game engine from the ground up again, offering “full functionality quickly while still giving developers a high degree of guidance and control.” Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, is quick to clarify that the AI they are integrating is not the “prompt‑to‑art” variety that dominates headlines.
Instead, the AI is woven into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he says.
“If we design the underlying code with that capability in mind, even solo developers or tiny teams can extend the engine beyond simple scripting. Want a custom particle system?
You can drop it in directly. That’s the kind of flexibility we’re targeting.” The motivation behind this AI‑centric approach stems from the harsh reality of today’s game market, which Brussee describes as “rough.” Development costs are ballooning, making it increasingly difficult for small studios to survive.
He asks, “How can we break out of that cycle? Can we discover more efficient workflows that lower budgets, reduce team sizes, and accelerate timelines without jeopardizing a studio’s livelihood?” De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, points out that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While this has provided a solid foundation, he argues that the industry now needs genuine innovation rather than incremental refinements.
“We’re at a crossroads where continuing to do things the same way won’t cut it,” he asserts. “We need a different paradigm.” One of De Jong’s key criticisms of existing engines is their monolithic nature. Developers must conform to proprietary file formats and rigid pipelines, limiting creativity. With AI, Immens aims to flip that script, delivering an engine that adapts to the user’s workflow.
“It must be ultra‑flexible,” he explains. “You should be able to swap components, append new features, modify existing tools, and build bespoke utilities that match your personal shortcuts, interface preferences, and project requirements.” Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it is “really powerful,” it can also “go off the rails quickly if you don’t monitor it.” To mitigate this risk, Immens is built around transparency and control.
“When you use the engine, you always know what it’s doing and why,” he says. “You can trace its history, ensure repeatability, and create custom tools for specific problems—like generating five characters with a particular trait in minutes instead of weeks.” This level of control, he believes, turns previously expensive, time‑consuming tasks into rapid, iterative processes.
Flexibility is baked into Immens’s core design. The framework does not force a single workflow; instead, it lets developers decide how much AI to incorporate and where. De Jong emphasizes that the architecture is deliberately open‑ended: “You choose how you want to work, whether you lean heavily on AI or keep it minimal. The important thing is that the AI must understand the context correctly.” Interoperability is another pillar of Immens’s strategy.
By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, the engine can communicate seamlessly with tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI pipeline. “If a file is readable as plain text, any system can parse it,” Brussee notes. “That means the AI can ingest those files, manipulate them, and output results that other software can immediately use. This level of openness has been missing from many proprietary engines, which often act as closed ecosystems.” The broader AI debate in game development is not without controversy.
Some commentators on LinkedIn predict a future where a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, sparking fears of “click‑to‑game” shortcuts. Immens’s team, however, views AI as a catalyst rather than a replacement.
Valient envisions a future where AI makes developers better, not obsolete: “Big games and indie titles alike will benefit because AI elevates everyone’s capabilities.” He cautions that the technology’s disruptive nature has generated negative perceptions, but stresses responsible usage. Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the sector is a bubble inflated by hype. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying internet survived and thrived.
“AI isn’t disappearing; it’s evolving. Some firms will fail, but the good ones—those that build solid products—will endure. Our focus is on creating a robust engine; AI simply accelerates our development and expands our imagination.” Funding remains modest at this stage.
Immens has secured its “first commitments” but has not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee warns against over‑capitalization, noting that excess cash can breed complacency: “Startups that become too well‑funded often lose the scrappy edge that drives innovation.” The company remains lean, consisting of the three founders and a handful of helpers. This intentional small size allows for rapid decision‑making and focused development. De Jong explains the trade‑off: “Building an engine is complex; you can’t throw a million engineers at it and expect miracles. You need a tight team that can iterate, make hard choices, and learn from failures.
At the same time, there’s a narrow window of opportunity as AI reshapes the industry. We must balance resources to hit that sweet spot.” Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow.
The team aims to release the demo within the month, a timeline that has already outpaced their original expectations. “When we started in April, we thought we’d be demo‑ready by year‑end,” Brussee recounts. “We’re now roughly twice as fast, which makes it hard to predict exact milestones.” The business model is still under discussion.
While Immens admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” revenue share, they consider it premature to commit to any specific arrangement. Brussee emphasizes that the ultimate goal is to empower creators and push the medium forward. “We love games as an art form. We want more creativity, more risk‑taking, and more innovation.
If our technology can help developers build experiences that were previously impossible, that would be amazing.” In summary, Immens seeks to leverage AI not as a gimmick but as a foundational tool that makes game engines more extensible, transparent, and adaptable. By focusing on open standards, developer control, and lean operations, the trio hopes to offer an alternative to the entrenched Unity‑Unreal paradigm, giving small teams a viable path to produce high‑quality games without the prohibitive costs that currently dominate the industry.