Star Wars Battlefront II’s Janina Gavankar on ‘triple-A fatigue’ and how the industry should refocus on creativity

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Talking at GamesBeat Summit yesterday, Star Wars Battlefront II’s actress Janina Gavankar discussed the rise of independent studios created by triple-A veterans and how she hopes these are going to shape the future of the industry. Ex-King staff creating London-based mobile studio Trailmix, ex-IO Interactive and Ubisoft Massive devs forming Sharkmob, ex-Quantic Dream lead designer Caroline Marchal founding Interior Night, ex-PlayStation and Activision directors launching Maze Theory: there are new examples of this trend every day.

According to GamesBeat, Gavankar believes these are the studios that are going to bring new experiences to the players who maybe had enough of the generic triple-A experiences.

“If you don’t have something that hits gamers’ hearts, you’re not going to reach them,” she said. “I have triple-A fatigue, and I have felt like this for a while. Why am I playing games that I could’ve played in 2007 except with better graphics?”

According to GamesBeat, Gavankar added that publishers should stop chasing trends to focus on experimenting new things.

“You can’t just follow that data forever,” Gavankar added. “Somebody had to find Spielberg and say: ‘OK, kid go ahead’. And it wasn’t based on data. It was because he was a genius.”

Talking more specifically about the new (secret) transmedia project she’s currently working on, Gavankar explained how important bringing platforms and interactive mediums together is, and how it could be the future of the games industry.

“In our time developing the world, we’re thinking about how we can make a VR experience, an AR experience, an interactive experience in any way, working in branching dialogue,” she said. “These things are really important if you want to keep creating and keep bridging the gaps between these mediums.”