For many years, the game‑development landscape has been dominated by two heavyweight engines: Unity and Unreal. In 2025, roughly seventy percent of all titles released on Steam were built with one of those platforms. While open‑source alternatives such as Godot have made noticeable strides, the majority of large studios still cling to proprietary solutions—Capcom’s RE Engine being a prime example. This duopoly has left the market feeling almost closed off.
Enter Immens, a fledgling startup founded by three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient. Their résumés read like a who’s‑who of game‑tech powerhouses: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they argue that there is still room for a fresh engine, and more importantly, room for a new way of building games. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a novel engine because “the tools that existed a couple of years ago simply aren’t enough any more.” He believes that AI‑augmented programming can return developers to a state of rapid prototyping: “With AI‑supported code generation you can start from a blank canvas again, while still keeping tight control over the final product.” Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, is careful to differentiate his vision of AI from the hype‑driven “prompt‑to‑asset” narrative that dominates headlines.
He stresses that the AI in Immens is a **design philosophy**, not a magic wand. “We’re building an engine whose architecture is deliberately extensible,” he says. “Because AI can analyse massive codebases and data sets, we can expose hooks that let solo developers or small teams add custom systems—like a bespoke particle renderer—without rewriting the core.” In practice, this means a developer could describe the feature they need, and the engine’s AI‑assisted tooling would scaffold the necessary code, letting the creator focus on artistic direction rather than low‑level implementation.
The motivation behind this ambitious project is rooted in the current economic climate of game development. Brussee paints a bleak picture: “Making games is getting harder and more expensive. Budgets are ballooning, timelines are stretching, and the risk to studios is skyrocketing.” He asks whether the industry can break this cycle by adopting more efficient workflows. The answer, according to Immens, lies in leveraging AI to shrink development teams, accelerate iteration, and lower overall costs, thereby reducing the financial gamble for creators.
De Jong, who serves as chief product officer, observes that the engine market has become overly **standardised** and **consolidated**. While that stability provides a solid foundation, it also stifles innovation. “We’re at a crossroads where the old ways simply won’t solve the new challenges,” he argues. “What the industry needs now is fresh thinking, not another copy of the same monolithic engine.” One of the pain points De Jong highlights is the **monolithic nature** of existing engines.
Developers are forced to adapt to proprietary file formats, rigid pipelines, and limited extensibility. Immens aims to flip that script by making the engine **adaptive**: users can swap modules, append new functionality, or rewrite interfaces to match their personal workflow. He illustrates this with a personal example, describing how he could craft tools that mirror his own habits—custom shortcuts, specialized UI panels, and tailored asset pipelines—without waiting for the engine vendor to implement them.
Valient acknowledges that AI is a double‑edged sword. While it can dramatically speed up tasks, it can also produce erratic results if left unchecked. “We’re building safeguards so that the engine remains transparent,” he says. “You can always inspect the history of changes, understand why a piece of code was generated, and reproduce it reliably.
This traceability is crucial for a creative process that often involves rapid experimentation, such as generating five unique characters over a coffee break.” Flexibility is baked into Immens from day one. De Jong emphasizes that the platform does **not** enforce a single workflow. “You decide how much AI you want to use and where,” he notes. “Our architecture is modular enough that you can run a completely manual pipeline if you prefer, or you can lean heavily on AI‑driven assistants for repetitive tasks.” The goal is to give developers agency rather than dictate a one‑size‑fits‑all approach.
Interoperability is another cornerstone of the design. By embracing open, text‑based standards, Immens can communicate seamlessly with the broader ecosystem—Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI tool.
Brussee explains that “when files are plain text, any tool can read and modify them. The AI can parse those files, apply transformations, and feed the results back into the engine.
This openness eliminates the siloed nature of many current engines, which often act as black boxes that refuse to play nicely with other software.” The conversation around AI in games is polarized. Some pundits on LinkedIn predict a future where a single prompt spawns a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fueling fear that creativity will be reduced to button‑presses.
Immens’ founders temper that vision. They see AI as a **tool**, not a replacement for human ingenuity.
Valient says, “The biggest games and the smallest indie titles will both benefit because AI makes every developer more capable. The negative press comes from the disruption scale, not from any inherent flaw in the technology.” De Jong adds a responsible‑use mantra: “AI is a tool like any other. It can be misused, but it can also elevate the craft. It’s our duty to shape it wisely.” Economic anxieties also swirl around AI, with many questioning whether the current hype is a bubble.
Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era: “The internet didn’t disappear after the bubble burst; many companies fell, but the underlying technology survived and flourished. We’re focused on building a solid engine first; AI simply accelerates our development and expands our creative horizon. Whether the market is inflated is unknown, but the technology itself isn’t going away.” Funding remains modest. Immens has secured its “first commitments,” though the founders keep the exact amount private, describing it as “reasonable.” Brussee warns against over‑capitalisation, noting that “too much money can make a startup complacent.
Scrappiness breeds innovation.” The team is deliberately lean—just the three founders plus a handful of helpers—so they can iterate quickly without bureaucratic drag. Balancing resources with ambition is a delicate act. De Jong explains that building a full‑featured engine is a massive undertaking that cannot be solved by hiring a thousand engineers. “You need a small, focused group to make critical decisions and iterate fast.
At the same time, you must time‑box your effort to capture the market window created by AI’s rise. That tension defines our current strategy.” Immens is now targeting a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow.
The team expected to reach that milestone by year‑end, but they are already two‑fold ahead of schedule, aiming to release the demo within the month. Brussee admits that predicting timelines is increasingly difficult when AI can accelerate development beyond human expectations. The business model is still under discussion.
While Immens admires Epic Games’ “we succeed when you succeed” revenue share, they acknowledge that it’s too early to commit to any specific licensing scheme. The ultimate aim, according to Brussee, is to empower creators to push the medium forward: “We love games as an art form. We want to see more risk‑taking, more creativity, and more innovative experiences. If our engine can be the foundation for that, it would be amazing."