Unreal Veteran Sjoerd De Jong Joins AI-Native Immense Engine
A veteran Unreal Engine evangelist joining a startup engine signals a credible attempt to break the two-engine market dominance with an AI-native design.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Sjoerd De Jong, a 12-year Epic Games veteran and Unreal Engine evangelist who left in June, has joined the development of Immense Engine. The engine, built by former Unreal developers including Arjan Brussee, aims to replace Unreal Engine and Unity with a clean, modern, AI-native design that integrates external AI agents from the start.
De Jong told This Week in Videogames about his new role, with PC Gamer among those reporting. He had worked with Unreal Engine since its 1998 debut, modding Unreal and Unreal Tournament before joining Epic in 2014 as an evangelist.
Immense Engine is being developed with Dutch startup by Arjan Brussee, another former Unreal Engine developer. It is designed to comply with EU regulations and to accept external AI agents like Claude and ChatGPT as modular components.
De Jong positions the engine as an alternative to Unreal Engine and Unity, arguing that the two engines' long development has left them bloated with legacy code. He stressed that Immense Engine is not AI-only, but AI-friendly, and that he does not want a future where pressing a button produces millions of games.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.