For many years, Unity and Unreal have reigned supreme in the world of game development, together accounting for roughly 70% of the titles launched on Steam in 2025. While the open‑source Godot engine has enjoyed a surge in popularity, the majority of large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example. In short, the engine market has long been dominated by the two giants. Enter Immens, a fledgling venture 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, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. The trio believes there is still room for a fresh engine, and more importantly, for a new approach to how engines are built and used. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new platform.
"There’s an opportunity now that didn’t exist a couple of years ago," he said. "With AI‑assisted programming we can start building from the ground up again, under tight guidance, and deliver full‑featured tools much faster than before." Valient, Immens’s chief technology officer, is careful to distinguish their AI usage from the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑content” narrative that dominates headlines. "Our AI isn’t about typing a prompt and watching a game appear," he clarified. "It’s about constructing an engine that is inherently extensible.
AI can reason over large codebases and data sets, so if we design the architecture with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can plug in a custom particle system or a bespoke AI routine without wrestling with opaque scripting layers." The motivation behind this AI‑centric engine is the increasingly bleak economics of game production. Brussee described the current climate as "rough," noting that development costs keep climbing, making it harder for small teams to survive. "We need new ways of working that lower budgets, shrink team sizes, and accelerate timelines," he argued. "Otherwise studios risk their livelihoods on projects that may never see the light of day." De Jong, Immens’s chief product officer, echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While that consolidation has given developers a solid foundation, it has also led to a monolithic approach where studios must bend their pipelines to fit the engine’s proprietary file formats and workflows. "We need innovation, not just more of the same," he said.
"Our goal is to give creators a tool that adapts to them, not the other way around." Flexibility is at the heart of Immens’s design philosophy. De Jong envisions an environment where developers can swap components, append new modules, or rewrite sections of the engine to suit their unique needs. "Imagine being able to craft a toolbar that mirrors your personal workflow—exact shortcuts, specific UI elements, the whole package—so your team can work exactly the way it should," he explained.
Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it can dramatically speed up repetitive tasks, it can also produce unexpected results if left unchecked.
"We are building Immens so that you remain in the driver’s seat," he said. "You always see what the engine is doing, you can trace its history, and you can reproduce results reliably. This transparency lets you create throw‑away tools for a one‑off task—like generating five characters with a particular trait—in minutes instead of weeks." Immens deliberately avoids imposing a single workflow on its users. De Jong emphasized that the framework is deliberately agnostic: "It’s up to you how much AI you want to employ and where you apply it.
The architecture is open enough to let you decide the balance between manual control and AI assistance." Interoperability is another cornerstone. By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, Immens aims to play nicely with the broader ecosystem of tools such as Blender, Maya, and other generative pipelines. "When files are human‑readable, any AI can ingest them and act on them," Brussee noted.
"That means you can plug in third‑party assets or custom pipelines without fighting against a closed‑off engine." The broader industry remains divided on AI’s role in game creation. Some commentators on LinkedIn predict a future where a simple prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience. Immens’s founders temper such expectations, insisting that AI should be viewed as a powerful assistant rather than a magical button.
Valient summed it up: "AI will make everyone better, but it’s still a tool. It has negative connotations now because it’s disrupting at a scale no one has seen before." Economic anxieties also swirl around the AI boom, with many fearing a bubble of over‑valued startups. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: "The internet didn’t disappear when the bubble burst; many companies fell, but the technology endured.
We’re focused on building a solid engine. AI helps us iterate faster and dream bigger, but the core product must stand on its own merits." Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its "first commitments" but has not disclosed amounts, describing the capital they seek as "reasonable." Brussee warns against over‑funding, noting that excess cash can breed complacency. "Startups need to stay scrappy," he laughed.
"Too much money can make you lazy." The team itself is intentionally lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers. De Jong explains the trade‑off: building an engine is complex, but throwing a thousand engineers at the problem doesn’t guarantee success.
A small, focused crew can make deliberate decisions and iterate quickly, which is crucial given the narrow window of opportunity presented by the AI wave. Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The goal is to release this demo within the month, a timeline that Brussee says is already twice as fast as originally projected. "We started in April and expected to be done by year‑end; we’re now ahead of schedule," he reported.
As for the business model, Immens remains in exploratory mode. While they admire Epic Games’ philosophy of sharing success with developers, they admit it’s too early to lock in a definitive pricing structure.
Ultimately, the founders hope their engine will empower creators to push the medium forward. "We love games and the complex artistic expression they enable," Brussee concluded.
"We want to see more risk‑taking, more innovation, and more beautiful experiences built on technology that actually serves the creator. That would be amazing."