Arjan Brussee — co‑founder of Guerrilla Games and former Unreal Engine product chief — is building The Immense Engine, a fully European‑hosted, AI‑native alternative to Unreal and Unity. His goal is nothing less than reshaping how game engines are built and who controls the technological backbone of Europe’s digital future.
🇪🇺 A New Challenger to the Engine Duopoly
For two decades, the global game‑development landscape has been dominated by two giants: Unreal Engine (Epic Games, USA) and Unity (Unity Technologies, USA/China). Europe — despite its creative output — has had no major engine of its own.
Arjan Brussee wants to change that.
Brussee isn’t just another veteran programmer. He’s the coder behind Jazz Jackrabbit, the production mind who helped build Guerrilla Games (and by extension, the Killzone and Horizon franchises), and the former global Director of Product Management for Unreal Engine. Few people understand the inner workings — and limitations — of modern engines as intimately as he does.
Now, back in the Netherlands and working independently, he’s building what he calls:
“A fully European‑hosted engine, built by Europeans, compliant with European rules and guidelines.”
— Arjan Brussee, De Technoloog podcast
He’s named it The Immense Engine.
🧠 Why Europe Wants Its Own Engine
Brussee argues that Europe’s dependence on American and Chinese technology is a strategic vulnerability — not just for gaming, but for defense, logistics, simulation, and any industry that will rely on 3D environments in the coming decade.
He sees a growing demand for engines that are:
- Hosted entirely within Europe
- Built under EU privacy, data, and security regulations
- Suitable for government and defense applications
- Flexible enough for non‑gaming industries
This is more than a creative tool — it’s a sovereignty play.
🤖 The AI‑Native Philosophy
Where Unreal and Unity evolved from decades‑old design principles, Brussee wants to start fresh. He believes modern engines must be built around AI agents, not menus and mouse‑driven workflows.
His critique is blunt:
Current engines were “made for and by people who have to click through a menu with a mouse.”
— Brussee
Instead, he imagines an engine where:
- AI agents automate repetitive tasks
- Designers describe intent, and the engine builds the scaffolding
- Small teams can produce work that once required dozens of specialists
- The engine’s architecture is modular and AI‑first, not retrofitted
He claims that with the right AI framework:
“You can do the work of ten or fifteen people.”
— Brussee
This isn’t about replacing developers — it’s about amplifying them.
🏗️ A New Construction Principle
Brussee hints that The Immense Engine will break from the monolithic structure of current engines. Instead of massive systems where a single change ripples through the entire codebase, he envisions:
- Component‑level flexibility
- AI‑driven optimization
- Faster iteration cycles
- A more intuitive workflow for non‑technical creators
If Unreal Engine is a cathedral, The Immense Engine aims to be a modular city — built piece by piece, with AI as the urban planner.
🌍 Why This Matters for the Industry
If Brussee succeeds, Europe gains:
- A homegrown engine for its booming game studios
- A secure platform for defense and simulation
- A competitive alternative that pressures Unreal and Unity
- A new technological identity in the global engine market
And for developers worldwide, it could mean:
- More competition
- More innovation
- More accessible tools
- More AI‑assisted workflows
The Immense Engine is still early, but the ambition is unmistakable.
🎮 The Bottom Line
Arjan Brussee isn’t just building another engine — he’s trying to redefine what a game engine is in the age of AI, and who gets to control the digital infrastructure of the next decade.
If he pulls it off, Europe may finally have its answer to Unreal.
