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 these platforms.
While the open‑source Godot engine has enjoyed a surge in popularity, and a handful of large studios continue to rely on proprietary solutions such as Capcom’s RE Engine, the market share of Unity and Unreal remains overwhelmingly strong. Against this backdrop, three industry veterans—Arjan Brussee, Sjoerd De Jong, and Michal Valient—have decided that there is still room for a fresh entrant.
Their new venture, Immens, is set to launch an AI‑enhanced game engine that they believe can address the shortcomings of the current generation of tools. The founders’ résumés read like a who’s‑who of modern game development: experience at Epic Games (the creators of Unreal), Guerrilla Games, Boss Key, and even Apple. Together they aim to challenge the status quo and give developers an alternative that is both powerful and adaptable.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Brussee explained that the timing feels right for a new engine. "A few years ago the idea of building a modern, AI‑assisted engine didn’t really exist," he said. "Now, with AI‑supported programming, we can start from scratch again and deliver full‑featured functionality much more quickly, while still keeping tight control over the development process." Valient, Immens’ chief technology officer, clarified that the company’s use of AI differs from the hype surrounding generative prompts.
"We’re not trying to conjure entire games with a single sentence," he noted. "Our AI is baked into the engine’s architecture to make the codebase highly extensible. Because AI can reason over large codebases and data sets, we can design the engine so that even solo developers or very small teams can add custom systems—like a bespoke particle system—without being limited to superficial scripting.
In short, AI becomes a catalyst for rapid extension rather than a magic wand." The motivation for this ambitious project stems from what Brussee describes as a "rough" market environment. Game development costs have been spiralling, making it increasingly difficult for studios to achieve profitability.
"We need new ways of working that lower expenses, shrink team sizes, and accelerate timelines," he argued. "If we can break that cycle, developers won’t have to gamble their livelihoods on massive budgets." De Jong, Immens’ chief product officer, echoed this sentiment, pointing out that the engine space has become overly standardized and consolidated. While standardisation has provided a solid foundation, the industry now faces a series of challenges that demand fresh thinking. "Continuing to do exactly what we’ve always done won’t solve the problems we’re seeing," he said.
"What we need is innovation, not just more of the same." One of the pain points De Jong highlighted is the monolithic nature of existing engines. Developers are forced to adapt to rigid pipelines, proprietary file formats, and fixed toolsets. With AI, Immens aims to flip that model on its head, delivering an engine that molds itself to the developer’s workflow.
"Flexibility is key," he explained. "Our system lets you swap components, append new modules, and even build custom tools that match your personal shortcuts, UI preferences, and project‑specific needs." Valient also warned that AI, while powerful, can become unpredictable if left unchecked. To mitigate this, Immens is built around transparency and control. Users will always be able to see what the engine is doing, review its decision history, and reproduce results reliably.
This level of auditability is essential for creative pipelines where a designer might need to generate five characters with a particular trait in minutes—a task that previously could take weeks. "Now you can prototype over coffee, reuse the tool a handful of times, and discard it when you’re done," Valient said, emphasizing the cost‑saving potential. Flexibility extends to the degree of AI involvement.
Immens does not impose a single workflow; developers can decide how much AI assistance they want and where to apply it. The architecture is deliberately modular, allowing teams to plug in AI where it makes sense while retaining full manual control elsewhere. Interoperability is another cornerstone of Immens’ design philosophy. By adopting open, text‑based standards for asset files, the engine can communicate seamlessly with popular tools such as Blender, Maya, or any generative‑AI pipeline.
"When files are human‑readable, any AI can parse them and act on them," Brussee said. "This openness eliminates the siloed nature of many current engines, which often resist integration with external standards." The broader industry conversation around AI is polarized. Some commentators on platforms like LinkedIn predict a future where a single prompt could spawn a Grand Theft Auto‑scale experience, fueling fears of a "click‑to‑game" apocalypse.
Immens’ team acknowledges the hype but insists their vision treats AI as a collaborative instrument rather than a replacement for human creativity. "AI will make every developer better, not replace them," Valient asserted.
"It’s a tool, and like any tool, it can be misused, but it also has the capacity to unlock unprecedented levels of expression." Economic anxieties also linger, especially regarding the possibility of an AI bubble. Valient draws a parallel to the dot‑com era, noting that while many speculative ventures vanished, the underlying technology— the internet—persisted and flourished. "AI isn’t disappearing; it’s evolving.
Some companies will fail, but the ones that deliver genuine value will survive. Our focus is on building a solid engine that leverages AI to accelerate development, not on chasing hype." Funding for Immens remains modest at this stage.
The founders have secured initial commitments but have not disclosed exact figures, describing the amount as "reasonable." Brussee cautioned against over‑capitalisation, warning that excess cash can breed complacency. "Startups need to stay scrappy," he laughed.
"Too much money can make you lazy." The company itself remains lean—just the three founders and a handful of auxiliary contributors. This deliberate size supports rapid decision‑making and maintains a tight feedback loop.
De Jong explained the trade‑off: a massive team does not automatically translate to faster engine development; instead, a focused group can iterate more efficiently and make nuanced design choices. Immens is currently racing toward a proof‑of‑concept demo that showcases a generative‑AI‑driven editing workflow. The team aims to release this demonstration within the month, a timeline that has already outpaced their original end‑of‑year estimate. "We’re moving twice as fast as we thought we would," Brussee reported, underscoring the acceleration that AI can bring to their own development process.
Business‑model discussions are still in their infancy. While Immens admires Epic Games’ revenue‑share model—"we succeed when you succeed"—the founders admit it’s too early to commit to a specific approach. Their primary goal remains to empower creators, lower barriers, and ultimately push the medium forward.
In closing, Brussee expressed a hopeful vision for the future of games: "We love games as an art form and want to see more creativity, more risk‑taking, and more innovation. If our engine can help developers build experiences that push the industry forward, that would be amazing."