For many years, Unity and Unreal have been the go‑to tools for game creators, together accounting for roughly seventy percent of all titles launched on Steam in 2025. While open‑source options like Godot have enjoyed notable growth, and a handful of studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example—the market has largely been dominated by those two giants. Enter Immers, 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 a better way to build games. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of the gaming world, featuring stints at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple.
Now they are teaming up to challenge the status quo. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine because “a few years ago the kind of platform we envision simply didn’t exist.” He argues that advances in AI‑assisted programming now let developers start from a clean slate without having to wrestle with legacy constraints. “With a lot of guidance and control, you can build something that delivers full functionality quickly,” he said.
Valient, Immers’s chief technology officer, is careful to distinguish their use of AI from the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑content” narrative that circulates in many circles. For Immers, AI is a tool for making the engine itself more extensible. “AI can reason over massive codebases and data sets,” he noted.
“If we design the architecture with that capability in mind, even a solo developer can add a custom particle system or a bespoke gameplay mechanic without being limited to a tiny scripting layer.” This extensibility, he says, is the core of their AI‑first philosophy: enable creators to harness AI to accelerate extensions rather than replace the creative process. The motivation behind Immers’s ambitious project stems from what Brussee describes as a “rough” market climate. Game development costs keep climbing, making it harder for small studios to survive. “We need new ways of working—more efficient pipelines that lower budgets and shrink team sizes—so creators aren’t risking everything on a single title,” he warned.
De Jong, the company’s chief product officer, points out that the engine landscape has become overly standardized and consolidated. While that consolidation provides a solid foundation, it also stifles innovation.
“The industry is facing a suite of challenges, and merely repeating old methods won’t cut it,” he argued. “We need genuine innovation, not just another iteration of the same monolithic engines.” A key criticism of current engines is their monolithic nature. Developers must conform to proprietary file formats and rigid workflows, often spending weeks building tools that should be simple. De Jong believes AI can flip that script, giving developers an engine that molds itself to their needs.
“Flexibility is essential,” he said. “You should be able to swap components, append new features, and craft bespoke tools that match your personal workflow—down to the exact shortcuts, UI layout, and feature set you require.” Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it is “really powerful,” it can also “go off the rails quickly” if left unchecked.
Immers therefore builds transparency into the system: users can see exactly what the engine is doing, review its decision history, and ensure repeatable outcomes. This level of control, he says, lets developers create disposable, highly specific tools—for instance, a script that generates five characters with a particular trait in minutes, a task that previously might have taken weeks. Flexibility extends to how much AI a team chooses to employ. De Jong emphasizes that Immers does not impose a single workflow; the architecture is deliberately open, allowing creators to decide where AI fits into their pipeline.
“We want to make sure the framework is adaptable, whether you lean heavily on AI or prefer a more traditional approach,” he explained. Interoperability is another pillar of Immers’s design. By embracing open standards and text‑based file formats, the engine can communicate seamlessly with tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI service.
“If a file is readable as text, the AI can parse it and act on it,” Brussee said. “This openness eliminates the ‘black‑box’ nature of many current engines and enables smarter, more fluid integration across the entire development stack.” The conversation around AI in game creation is not without controversy. Some commentators on LinkedIn and elsewhere warn that AI could lead to “click‑to‑game” solutions where a single prompt spawns a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience.
Immers’s team acknowledges the hype but frames AI as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement for human creativity. “AI will make everyone better, not replace them,” Valient asserted. “It has negative connotations now because it’s disrupting at a scale we’ve never seen, but that disruption is an opportunity.” Economic anxieties also loom, with many questioning whether the AI boom is a bubble.
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 first,” he said. “AI helps us move faster and think bigger, but the core product must stand on its own merits.” Funding remains modest. Immers has secured its “first commitments,” but the founders have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑funding, noting that excess capital can breed complacency.
“Startups need to stay scrappy,” he laughed. The team itself is deliberately lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers. De Jong explains that a massive workforce does not guarantee success in building a complex engine; a small, focused group can make better decisions and iterate more quickly. Yet they also recognize a narrow window of opportunity created by the convergence of AI advances and industry fatigue with existing tools.
Balancing sufficient resources with a tight, agile team is the core strategic challenge they are navigating. Immers 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 has already outpaced the founders’ original expectations.
“When we started in April, we thought we’d be demo‑ready by year‑end,” Brussee recalled. “We’re now roughly twice as fast as we anticipated.” Business‑model discussions are still in early stages. While the team admires Epic Games’ revenue‑share philosophy—“we succeed when you succeed”—they admit it’s too soon to lock in a definitive approach. Ultimately, Brussee hopes Immers will catalyze a new wave of creative risk‑taking in games.
“We love games as an art form and want to see more daring, innovative experiences,” he said. “If our technology can empower developers to push boundaries, that would be amazing.”