Arjan Brussee, best known as the co-founder of Guerrilla Games and a former director at Epic Games, is back with a brand new game engine built from the ground up with AI at its core. Called ‘The Immense Engine’, Brussee is pitching it as an European alternative to Unreal Engine and Unity. The project, backed by a Dutch startup, isn’t just for game studios; it’s also targeting defence, logistics, and 3D simulation. For now, there’s no word on when it will launch.
Brussee recently shared his first details about the engine on the Dutch podcast De Technoloog. He made it clear that most big-name engines were built before AI even existed, and adding on AI tools later only takes one so far. The Immense Engine, by contrast, is putting AI agents front and center from the very start.
The co-founder of Guerrilla does not shy away from bold promises. He claims that with the right AI setup, one developer could do the work of an entire team, 10 or even 15 people. It’s quite a confident statement, and while it’s unproven, Brussee’s previous experiences give it some real credibility. He helped build Guerrilla, the studio behind the Decima engine that powers Horizon and Death Stranding. He spent years at Epic working on Unreal, and even coded Jazz Jackrabbit back in the ’90s.
But Brussee isn’t just talking about performance. He’s also pitching The Immense Engine as a way for Europe to reduce its reliance on American and Chinese tech and ensure everything complies with EU regulations by keeping it all hosted in Europe. This pitch hits home, especially after the Unity pricing fiasco in 2023, which sent studios scrambling for alternatives. And with Unreal’s 5% royalty on anything over $1 million, mid-sized studios are definitely paying attention.
European Alternative To Unreal Engine Isn’t Fully Independent From US Tech
Unfortunately, though, Brussee’s pitch about Europe becoming independent from American and Chinese tech has its limits. Sources familiar with the project note that the AI agent stack currently relies on US providers, including OpenAI and Anthropic, which casts a thick cloud of doubt over the engine’s promises of independence.
Sony is preparing to license Guerrilla’s Decima engine to third-party developers, showing that European engines can make an impact. Whether The Immense Engine will follow suit remains to be seen. For now, there are no details on funding, team size, or studio partners. There’s no public demo, no roadmap, and no news on beta access. The idea, on paper, seems possible. Whether Brussee and his team can actually pull it off is still uncertain. Add to that gamers’ aversion to the use of AI in game development, and Brussee might have quite the challenge at hand.
