For years, Unity and Unreal have held sway over the game‑development landscape, powering roughly 70% of all Steam releases in 2025. While open‑source options like Godot have begun to attract attention, most major studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example.
The dominance of Unity and Unreal appears almost unassailable. Enter Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient, the trio behind Immersive, who argue that there is still room for a fresh engine and, more importantly, for meaningful improvement.
Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of the industry: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they are setting out to challenge the status quo.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee noted that “the moment is right to build a new engine that simply didn’t exist a few years ago.” He believes AI‑assisted programming can finally let developers start from a clean slate. “With guided, controllable AI you can assemble a fully‑functional engine much faster than traditional hand‑coding,” he explained. Valient, Immersive’s CTO, is quick to clarify that their use of AI is not the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑asset” approach that many people associate with the term today.
“Our AI is baked into the engine’s architecture to make it highly extensible,” he said. “Because AI can reason over large codebases, we can design the engine so that even a solo developer can add a custom particle system, a bespoke physics module, or any other feature without being confined to a limited scripting layer.” In short, AI becomes a productivity multiplier, not a magic wand.
The motivation for this ambitious project stems from a bleak market reality. Brussee describes the current climate as “rough”: development costs keep climbing, and the risk of failure is higher than ever. “We need new ways of working that lower budgets, shrink team sizes, and speed up delivery,” he argued. “If we can break the cost‑escalation cycle, studios can survive longer and take more creative risks.” De Jong, Immersive’s chief product officer, points out that the engine market has become overly standardized and consolidated.
While that has given developers a solid foundation, it also means the industry is stuck in a comfort zone. “We’re at a point where the challenges—rising costs, talent shortages, and market saturation—require genuine innovation, not just more of the same,” he said. “A monolithic engine that forces developers to adapt to its proprietary formats is no longer acceptable.” Flexibility, according to De Jong, is the cornerstone of Immersive’s philosophy. He envisions an engine where users can swap components, append new modules, and craft tools that match their personal workflows.
“Imagine being able to build an interface with exactly the shortcuts, panels, and shortcuts that suit my team’s needs, then hand it over to the next project unchanged,” he mused. This level of customisation, he believes, will be made possible by AI‑driven code generation and refactoring.
Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. “It’s incredibly powerful, but it can also go off the rails if you’re not vigilant,” he warned. To mitigate this, Immersive is designing the engine so that users retain full visibility and control over every AI‑generated change. “You can see the history, understand why a piece of code was produced, and reproduce it reliably,” he explained.
This transparency, he argues, turns AI from a black‑box into a reliable collaborator. The team also stresses that Immersive will not dictate a single workflow.
“You decide how much AI you want to use and where,” De Jong said. “Our architecture is deliberately open, allowing you to blend traditional pipelines with AI‑enhanced steps as you see fit.” This openness extends to file formats: by embracing text‑based, open standards, Immersive ensures seamless interoperability with tools like Blender, Maya, or any generative‑art platform.
“If the files are readable, the AI can manipulate them, and you can plug in any third‑party software without fighting proprietary barriers,” Brussee added. The broader conversation about AI in game development is fraught with hype and fear. Some LinkedIn influencers claim that a single prompt will soon generate a Grand Theft Auto‑scale world.
While Immersive concedes that “click‑to‑game” concepts may eventually appear, they view AI primarily as a tool that elevates human creators. “AI will make everyone better, not replace them,” Valient affirmed.
“It’s disruptive, yes, but that disruption can lead to richer, more ambitious experiences.” Economic concerns also loom large. Critics warn that AI‑focused startups might be riding a speculative bubble. Valient counters that bubbles are part of tech history.
“The dot‑com bubble didn’t erase the internet; it simply filtered out the weaker players,” he said. “We’re focused on building a solid engine that stands on its own merits, regardless of market hype.” Funding remains modest.
Immersive has secured its “first commitments,” but the founders are vague about the exact amount, describing it as “reasonable.” Brussee cautions against over‑capitalisation: “Too much money can make a startup complacent. Scrappiness drives ingenuity.” The company remains a lean operation—just the three founders and a handful of helpers—by design. De Jong explains the balance: “You can’t throw a million engineers at an engine and expect it to work. You need a focused team to make thoughtful architectural decisions, yet you also need enough resources to hit the market window created by AI’s rise.” Currently, Immersive is racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI editing flow.
The team aimed for an end‑of‑year release but has already accelerated the timeline, planning to reveal the demo within the month. “We thought it would take us until December; we’re already twice as fast,” Brussee said, highlighting the very speed gains they promise to deliver to developers. Business‑model discussions are still in early stages. While Brussee admires Epic’s “we succeed when you succeed” revenue share, he admits it’s too soon to commit to any specific approach.
Ultimately, the founders hope Immersive will empower creators to push the medium forward. “We love games as an art form and want to see more risk‑taking, more creativity,” Brussee concluded.
“If our technology helps studios build bolder experiences, that would be amazing."