Vince Zampella, the co-creator of video game franchise “Call of Duty,” died in a single-car accident on Sunday near Los Angeles, NBC LA confirmed Monday. He was 55.
Zampella was involved in a Ferrari crash on Southern California’s Angeles Crest Highway around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday. The accident happened north of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountain as the car was heading south and hit a concrete barrier. The car caught on fire, and the driver was pronounced dead at the scene, according to NBC Los Angeles. The passenger was ejected from the vehicle and later died at a hospital.
With Jason West, Zampella was the co-founder of video game developer Infinity Ward, which created the hugely successful “Call of Duty” series in 2003. After being fired by parent company Activision, for which he later sued for wrongful termination and received a settlement, Zampella co-founded Respawn Entertainment in 2010. After Zampella left in 2013, the studio was acquired by EA and went on to make hit games like “Titanfall,” “Apex Legends,” “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” and more. In 2021, EA put Zampella in charge of the popular “Battlefield” franchise.
Zampella started out in the video game industry at publisher GameTek, then later met West while working at SegaSoft. They became lead designers on 2002’s “Medal of Honor: Allied Assault,” a first-person military shooter that was set during WWII and counted Steven Spielberg as a co-writer.
Zampella and West founded Infinity Ward along with Grant Collier in 2002, and the company made a deal with Activision to create a rival to “Medal of Honor.” That would become “Call of Duty,” dubbed their “‘Medal of Honor’ Killer.” Under Zampella’s leadership, Infinity Ward released four “Call of Duty” games, including the mega hit “Modern Warfare.”
More to come…