“We should be building new IPs”: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Final Fantasy 16’s Ben Starr doesn’t want games to be stuck in the past

Prominent video game actor Ben Starr – who you might recognize as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33‘s Verso or Final Fantasy 16’s Clive – wants the games industry to embrace more original IP rather than be stuck digging through its own past.

The topic came up during a panel at Emerald City Comic-Con 2026 when Starr mentioned how much he adores Legacy of Kain, the dormant action-adventure series about vampires and free will.

“I’ve been very vocal about how I would love to be a part of the Legacy of Kain franchise,” he says in the discussion embedded above, “but this is a panel about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and I think the reason we’re here is because original IP in 2026 should be king. We shouldn’t be looking back.”

Starr goes on to say that he’d love to be a part of Legacy of Kain, should the franchise ever come out with a new game, of course, “because of the performances that have inspired me as an actor.” But he still believes “we should be building new IPs, not always looking back to the past.”

He then points to Resident Evil, a long-running franchise that’s on an “insanely good” run. But even there, he’d prefer to “be in the next whatever Clair Obscur is. Let’s originate characters… That’s what we should be looking towards.”

If you know where to look, plenty of the most exciting new games of 2026 are entirely original concepts, but it’s predominantly indie developers who are banging that drum the loudest. Most of the biggest AAA releases of the year are continuations of long-running franchises (GTA 6), re-remakes (Halo: Campaign Evolved), or an adaptation (Marvel’s Wolverine).

“You can’t build clever little games anymore,” says RPG legend, unless you get lucky like Clair Obscur Expedition 33: “That doesn’t please the stock market”