For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the go‑to tools for game creators, accounting for roughly 70 % of the titles released on Steam in 2025. While Godot has begun to carve out a niche and some large studios cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been dominated by these two giants. Against this backdrop, three seasoned industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have decided to challenge the status quo with a fresh offering: Immens, an AI‑enhanced game engine designed to give smaller teams a viable alternative.
The founders’ résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development. Brussee spent years at Epic Games, the creator of Unreal, while De Jong contributed to projects at Guerrilla Games and other high‑profile studios. Valient brings experience from Apple and several indie successes. Together, they argue that the current engine landscape, though stable, leaves room for innovation and more affordable solutions.
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine. "A few years ago the idea of an AI‑augmented workflow didn’t exist in a practical sense.
Now, with AI‑supported programming, we can start building from scratch again while still keeping tight control over the process," he said. The team’s vision is not to replace human creativity with a black‑box prompt system, but to embed AI as a productivity enhancer that makes the engine more extensible. Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, clarified that their AI isn’t about generating content from vague commands.
"We’re designing the engine so that AI can reason about the codebase and data structures, allowing developers—whether solo creators or small studios—to extend the engine with custom systems like bespoke particle effects without wrestling with low‑level scripting," he noted. This approach aims to democratise deep engine modification, turning what used to be a specialist task into something more approachable. The motivation behind Immens stems from the increasingly hostile economics of game development. Brussee described the current climate as "rough," emphasizing that production costs are spiralling and risk levels are climbing.
"We need new ways of working that lower budgets, shrink team sizes, and accelerate timelines. Otherwise studios jeopardise their very survival," he warned.
De Jong echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated. While standardisation provides a solid foundation, the industry now requires genuine innovation rather than incremental tweaks. One of the core criticisms De Jong has of existing engines is their monolithic nature. Developers must adapt to rigid pipelines, proprietary file formats, and limited extensibility.
By contrast, Immens is being built to be highly modular. "You should be able to swap components, add new tools, and tailor the interface to your workflow.
If I need a shortcut or a specific UI layout for my team, I can create it without fighting the engine’s core," he explained. This flexibility is intended to let creators shape the tool to their needs rather than the other way around. Valient also cautioned that AI, while powerful, can misbehave if left unchecked. Immens therefore incorporates transparency features: users can see what the AI is doing, review its decision history, and ensure repeatable results.
"Think of a scenario where you need five characters with a unique trait. In the past that could take weeks of manual work. With AI‑assisted tooling you could prototype that over a coffee break, reuse the workflow, and discard it when done.
That kind of rapid iteration used to be prohibitively expensive," he said. The architecture of Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow. De Jong stressed that the framework is designed so developers decide how much AI to incorporate and where. The engine also embraces open standards, allowing seamless integration with tools such as Blender, Maya, or any text‑based asset pipeline.
"When files are human‑readable, the AI can parse and manipulate them directly, which opens up a whole ecosystem of interoperability that closed, proprietary engines often block," Brussee added. Public perception of AI in game development is mixed, with some fearing a future where a simple prompt could generate a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience.
Immens’s team acknowledges the hype but positions AI as a tool, not a replacement. Valient believes that AI will elevate the entire industry: "Big games and indie projects alike will benefit because AI makes everyone more capable. The current negativity stems from disruption at an unprecedented scale." Economic anxieties also linger.
Critics warn of an AI bubble with inflated valuations. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many companies vanished, the underlying technology persisted and grew stronger.
"Our focus is on building a solid engine. AI simply accelerates our development and expands what we can imagine. Whether the market is a bubble is uncertain, but the technology isn’t going away," he said.
Funding for Immens 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. The company remains a lean operation—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explained the balance: a game engine is complex and cannot be built by a massive team overnight, yet timing is critical to capture the window of opportunity created by AI’s rise.
Immens is currently developing a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow, slated for release later this month. The team’s progress has already outpaced their original schedule, with development moving twice as fast as anticipated.
While the long‑term business model is still forming, Brussee expressed admiration for Epic’s revenue‑share philosophy, though he cautioned that any definitive approach is still premature. Ultimately, the founders hope Immens will enable creators to push the artistic and technical boundaries of games. "We love games and want to see more daring, creative experiences.
If our technology can help studios take risks and innovate, that would be amazing," Brussee concluded.