On Sunday, Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty video game series, died in a car crash in Los Angeles at the age of 55. Though best known for that series of blockbuster military shooters, Zampella touched a huge number of lives – not only the hundreds of people who worked at the game development studios he led under Activision and EA, but the millions of people who played the games that bore his imprint.
A lifelong gamer, Zampella had a Pong console as a child, then an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64. He told IGN in 2016 that his favourite game from childhood was Donkey Kong: “I would spend hours at the arcade playing it.” Zampella’s first job in the industry was at GameTek in Miami, which specialised in video-game versions of popular US quizshows. He described his role on the small team as: “producer slash customer services slash tester – whatever needed to be done.”
It was at a developer called 2015, Inc in Tulsa that Zampella had his first smash hit as lead designer. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was the third title in the acclaimed series of second world war shooters, which had been inspired by Saving Private Ryan and written in conjunction with Steven Spielberg. Zampella had envisioned a new type of shooter with an epic, cinematic sense of immersion. The game was a bestseller, acclaimed for its globetrotting narrative and taut, tense action – especially during its thrilling depiction of the Omaha beach landing.
When publisher Electronic Arts made the decision to take the development of Medal of Honour in-house, Zampella and his colleague Jason West left, together with Grant Collier, and set up Infinity Ward in Los Angeles. There they created Call of Duty, a second world war shooter designed to exceed Medal of Honor’s sense of epic drama – indeed, its original development title had been Medal of Honor Killer. Critically, the game featured a range of lead characters including US, British and Russian fighters rather than giving players control of a single “super soldier”. “It’s meant to show you that no one side won the war – it was an allied effort,” Zampella said at the time.
Once again, the emphasis was on dramatic set-piece battles on a vast scale, with the player surrounded by computer-controlled allies giving the impression of being a small part of a wider campaign. “We’re all about authenticity and intensity,” Zampella said. “We’ve strived to put as many guys on screen as possible. It’s about your squad, not you as a lone gunman.”
This emphasis on teamwork and cinematic intensity would become emblematic of Call of Duty. While two sequels remained in the theatre of the second world war, for the fourth title, released in 2007, Zampella and West decided to move into the modern era. The result, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, is one of the most important and influential first-person shooters ever made.
Its campaign features a group of special forces operatives, including newcomer John “Soap” MacTavish and grizzled SAS captain John Price, taking on Russian ultra-nationalists and a Middle Eastern warlord. It had imaginative and exciting missions, including All Ghillied Up, a sniper mission in the wake of the Chornobyl disaster, and the eerie Death From Above, in which players control the various weapons of a C-130 aircraft, taking out enemies on the ground who appear merely as dots on an infrared screen. Meanwhile, the game’s online multiplayer mode brought new innovations including kill-streaks, which allowed players on a winning run to call in special attacks such as airstrikes. Infinity Ward created the template for multiplayer shooters that is still used today. Call of Duty’s DNA is present in every modern hit of the genre.
In 2010, Zampella and West were fired from Infinity Ward by publisher Activision, and went on to form Respawn Entertainment, taking more than 30 Call of Duty staff with them. Under new publisher Electronic Arts, the company released Titanfall in 2014, a multiplayer-focused sci-fi shooter intended to innovate within the genre. The game emphasised the player’s freedom of movement, allowing for smooth, parkour-style navigation of obstacles and structures. Players were also able to call in and pilot giant, heavily armed mechs. As Zampella explained at the time: “It’s taking the old paradigm of these shooter games being very grounded and two-dimensional and now adding this verticality to it and making it something that’s a new experience; something that people haven’t seen before.”
After splitting with Activision, Zampella advised several other game creatives who found themselves at odds with their publishers and were considering striking out on their own. One of them was Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear Solid and, at his own studio Kojima Productions, the Death Stranding series. “When I was preparing to go independent myself, and maybe because he felt we were in similar situations, he took the time to listen to me, offered advice, and supported me in many ways,” wrote a “heartbroken” Kojima on X after Zampella’s death. “He even showed me around the studio. Even after he moved to DICE, whenever I went to Los Angeles, we would have meals together and talk about our respective futures”
Titanfall’s sequel added an extraordinary single-player story to the original’s fluid online play – it is still one of the best shooter campaigns around. That series’ emphasis on smooth, seamless movement would also characterise Respawn’s entry into the battle royale genre: Apex Legends. Released with almost no pre-publicity in 2019, it would attract 10m players in its opening 72 hours and still maintains a place in the pantheon alongside Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone.
Respawn next made two excellent single-player Star Wars games, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor. Zampella’s peers have noted that working on the Star Wars franchise brought him and his colleagues at Respawn great joy.
In 2020, Electronic Arts put Zampella in charge of the Battlefield franchise, with a remit to recharge the series after the disappointing performance of Battlefield V and Battlefield 2042. Released in October, Battlefield 6 was widely praised as a return to form, especially the online multiplayer modes. It sold 7m copies in three days, the best ever opening for the series.
Zampella will be remembered as one of the most influential game designers of his era and a ceaseless innovator in the first-person shooter genre – and with the Star Wars Jedi series, outside it. He was someone whom you always looked forward to encountering or interviewing at games industry events, an outspoken creative who cared deeply about video games and the player’s experience.
“Vince was an extraordinary person – a gamer at heart, but also a visionary executive with a rare ability to recognise talent and give people the freedom and confidence to create something truly great,” wrote Geoff Keighley on X, who runs the Game Awards and, as a former games journalist, worked on a documentary about Titanfall with Zampella. “Even when it was difficult or uncomfortable, Vince never wavered in his commitment to honesty and transparency. He believed that the truth mattered, and he was willing to share it with the world. Vince cared deeply about doing the right thing. And even while working inside large organisations, he consistently pushed to put players first – to prioritise the experience, the craft and the people who played the games. He leaves behind an incredible legacy of work … I always felt he still had his greatest one ahead of him. It’s heartbreaking that we’ll never get to play it.”