Guerrilla Games co-founder Arjan Brussee says he is developing another European alternative Unreal engine through a new startup based in the Netherlands. Aside from offering competition for the Unreal Engine, the ambitious project could potentially help push the frontier in certain technology segments, particularly modular, agent AI software architecture.
Arjan Brussee began his game industry journey in the 1990s, when he worked as a programmer at Epic's Jazz Jackrabbit platform game series. In 2003, he co-founded Guerrilla Games, where he spent nine years as executive producer and chief operating officer. Sony Computer Entertainment acquired the studio for an undisclosed sum in 2005. Brussee later spent 30 months as an executive producer at Electronic Arts, working with Battlefield Hardline and DLC for Battlefield 3. He went on to found Boss Key Productions, the now-defunct developer of Violator2014 before joining Epic Games in 2017. He spent eight and a half years at the company, holding the roles of head of mobile, head of product management, and chief technology officer, in that order.
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Brussee is working on AI-Native European Rival to Unreal Engine
Describing his latest career chapter during a May 2026 episode of the Dutch podcast De Technoloog, Brussee said he was working on a startup behind a new graphics rendering engine called the Immense Engine. He described the project as a fully European platform intended to compete with similar solutions from the US and China.
AI agent modules are billed as the building blocks of the huge engine
The core idea behind Immense seems to be as much about architecture as geography. Brussee said the technology is being designed with “full integration of AI,” and argued that the rise of this technology category creates an opportunity to rethink basic software like game engines. Unlike traditional frameworks that rely on manual tool navigation, The Immense Engine will use AI agents as modular components, making it easier to add new systems as technology evolves rather than re-engineering a single monolithic stack.
The huge engine can extend beyond gaming
Like most modern AI tools, Immense Engine will rely on cloud resources. Brussee said the platform will be entirely in Europe, making it suitable for applications beyond gaming that require regional data compliance. He mentioned logistics and 3D simulations for defense agencies as potential markets where the EU compliance-focused strategy could be relevant. European game developers will likely still account for a significant portion of the engine's early adopters.
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Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.
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The gaming industry's growing focus on AI-assisted development indicates that the Immense Engine could have a sizable pool of potential customers, provided it can be delivered quickly enough. So far, however, there is no word on its future release timeline. Modern game engines are highly complex frameworks built on years, and often decades, of accumulated development work. The European focus of Brussee's current project also suggests that it could potentially benefit from EU funding, although there is currently no sign that he is pursuing that path. The Immense Engine could fill the hole left by the Unity Engine in 2009, when Unity Technologies moved from Copenhagen to San Francisco to gain access to government venture funding and developer talent.
Source: VGC
