Vince Zampella, co-founder of Respawn and leader of the Battlefield series, who was instrumental in creating the Call of Duty game franchise, has died.
Per NBC Los AngelesZampella died on Sunday afternoon, December 21, in a single-vehicle car accident north of Los Angeles. The driver of the vehicle died at the scene, while the passenger died later in hospital, although it is not clear who Zampella was. No details have yet been released to confirm the exact cause of the crash. The veteran video game developer was 55.
Zampella was a giant in the industry and it’s hard to overestimate his impact not only in the first-person shooter genre, but also in video games as a whole. His career in games began in the 1990s, when he worked at Atari to help the company establish itself in the PC market. From 1999 to 2002, he also worked at 2015, Inc., where he was lead designer on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
In 2003, Zampella and Jason West co-created the Call of Duty franchise at Infinity Ward, ironically as a competitor to Medal of Honor. The pair were fired from Infinity Ward in 2010, after which they founded Respawn Entertainment, the studio known for games like Titanfall and Titanfall 2, Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. EA acquired Respawn in 2017 and in 2021 Zampella became Head of Battlefield under the EA umbrella. Zampella also remained CEO of Respawn until his untimely death.
GamesRadar+ has reached out to Respawn and EA for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
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