The global technology sector is undergoing a subtle yet definitive shift toward digital independence, with European developers and regulatory bodies increasingly looking to move away from dominant American platforms. While recent shifts have seen governments transitioning to open-source operating systems, the gaming and real-time 3D creation industries are now facing a similar transformation. Arjan Brussee, a veteran Dutch developer and co-founder of Guerrilla Games, has announced an ambitious new venture called the Immense Engine. The project aims to deliver a fully European-built, hosted, and compliant alternative to Epic Games’ industry-dominating Unreal Engine.
Speaking on the Dutch technology podcast De Technoloog, Brussee outlined his vision for a general-purpose engine built from the ground up within Europe. The market significance of this move is hard to overstate. Unreal Engine currently acts as the structural bedrock for a massive portion of the entertainment industry. Beyond anchoring blockbuster games like Fortnite, Mass Effect, and BioShock Infinite, it has become a staple in Hollywood virtual production suites for series like The Mandalorian. While Europe has produced powerful engines in the past, such as Germany’s CryEngine, they have historically been tailored to specific genres like first-person shooters and have struggled to capture broader market adoption.
Brussee’s extensive background gives the Immense Engine immediate credibility. As the co-creator of the classic title Jazz Jackrabbit and a foundational leader behind the Horizon: Zero Dawn studio, he also spent significant time working inside Epic Games itself. This unique vantage point provides him with an acute understanding of both the technical architecture and the corporate vulnerabilities of legacy engines.
According to Brussee, the initiative is driven by a lack of localized infrastructure. He pointed out that no major player is currently offering a development engine that is fully European-hosted and engineered in strict compliance with the region’s rigid guidelines and digital privacy laws. Furthermore, he emphasized that the demand for high-fidelity 3D environments has expanded far beyond the gaming ecosystem, becoming a critical tool for industrial design, architecture, and corporate virtual spaces.
The most modern and potentially disruptive aspect of the Immense Engine is its reliance on next-generation development workflows. Rather than attempting to match the massive, multi-decade engineering teams of Epic Games through sheer numbers, Brussee plans to build the software using an advanced framework of artificial intelligence. By strategically deploying coordinated AI agents, he believes a lean development team can effectively match the output of fifteen traditional software engineers. This AI-assisted model could fundamentally alter the cost-to-benefit ratio of engine development, allowing a startup to realistically compete with a trillion-dollar industry standard.
As European regulatory frameworks like the AI Act and GDPR tighten, a native engine built with these rules embedded into its core architecture could become highly attractive to developers seeking long-term operational stability. While unseating an industry giant like Unreal Engine remains a monumental task, the combination of Brussee's industry pedigree, an AI-forward development philosophy, and a growing institutional appetite for tech sovereignty makes the Immense Engine one of the most compelling projects to watch in modern software engineering.
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