Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died

113 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by superpupervlad
(comicbook.com)

33 Comments

ViktorRay

9 hours ago

I remember playing the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 back in the day after I rented it from Blockbuster. That game was an incredible experience.

Thank you to Vince Zampella and everyone else who worked on that game for those memories.

Rest in peace

antonymoose

7 hours ago

I remember seeing a Best Buy ad for it touting the “cinematic experience” of playing MW2 - and it truly felt like it, a real revolution in gaming.

However, I really stopped playing big titles since then. Are there any good “woah” games that took it another step further?

Gracana

6 hours ago

Titanfall 2 is a really good one. Not something I expected to have such a strong emotional element. I didn't know Vince Zampella's name, but it is another project of his, so it seems fitting to recommend it here.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (the original, I haven't played the sequel) was crazy good. Gameplay-wise it's fine, but story wise it is one of the most emotionally intense games I have ever played. I recommend going into it spoiler-free. Look it up and see if it's something you're interested in, and if you want to play it, stop reading and play it.

tapoxi

5 hours ago

Titanfall 1/2 and Apex Legends were all huge. He recently produced Battlefield 6 which was also released to acclaim.

esseph

7 hours ago

A lot of it is iterations upon iterations, so it can be hard to pick out precise moments. There are great games out there.

spondyl

7 hours ago

RIP Vince. Whether you're a fan of FPS titles or not, the work of him and his teams have undoubtly helped to shape pop culture in some sense. One of my favourite games as a teenager (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) was arguably a reaction to his work (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) so in that sense, Vince played some small part in making me who I am today, even if I'd never thought about it before

dralley

9 hours ago

Titanfall 2 was spectacular, and BF6 is easily the best entry in the franchise in the past decade+. Apex Legends is great too.

RIP.

throwaway613745

4 hours ago

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is probably my second favorite FPS game after Doom 2. Nothing has ever really hit me since like the nuke scene did. The set-pieces in Modern Warfare and MW2 are some of the best single-player FPS gaming I’ve ever experienced.

RIP Vince

leshokunin

8 hours ago

Very unfortunate. Thank you for the wonderful moments. You created so many.

MDTHLN

8 hours ago

Absolutely awful to hear.

His games were a significant part of my teenagehood, as I'm sure they were for many others. Thank you for all the memories Vince.

metabagel

7 hours ago

Road surface and consequently traction can vary (for example, gravel). It's important to stay well within margin. Once you lose traction at speed, it can be hard to get it back.

TL;DR take it to the track, where the road surface is well maintained.

spike021

5 hours ago

Technically yes but on any given track day there can still be gravel, weeds, rubber, bits of material from car body kits/aero, and even various liquids that have leaked.

randerson

4 hours ago

If you do hit gravel/oil, tracks at least have runoff areas or soft barriers, and no oncoming traffic or cliffs to worry about.

Every track day I've attended required the cars to have been inspected for leaks and loose components. And they were quick to clean up any debris or oil.

Not that tracking cars is the safest hobby, but if someone is gonna drive like that regardless its far safer at a track than on public roads.

journal

9 hours ago

"A passenger was ejected, and the driver died after being trapped in the burning vehicle"

__turbobrew__

9 hours ago

Not sure why you are being downvoted. Dude crashed his Ferrari.

lysace

8 hours ago

Realistic racing sim games have taught me not to want a supercar for daily drives. Way too easy to f up.

Just one such example (1983):

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/10/business/corporate-triump...

https://archive.ph/gbrZv

> CORPORATE TRIUMPH, THEN DEATH IN A FERRARI

> The young president of a successful new computer company died Wednesday afternoon in a car crash in California's Silicon Valley, hours after his company had sold its stock to the public for the first time and he had become a multimillionaire.

joshu

6 hours ago

supercars from 1983 are very different than modern cars. they have traction control now and are much tamer.

randerson

5 hours ago

I think this understates just how fast modern performance cars have gotten and how unsuitable they are for public roads.

A Ferrari 296GTB sprints from 0-100mph in 4.7s. The 1983 Lamborghini Countach I had a wall poster of as a kid, took 12.1s (and a relatively leisurely 5.4s to get to 60mph). The Ferrari is pulling well over 1G longitudinally during this time, enough to induce tunnel vision in some people and warp your perception of speed and distance.

Compare someone accelerating at full throttle through that tunnel in the Countach versus the 296. The 296 would reach 2-3x the speed the Lambo did by the time they reach the curve where he crashed. Human brains can't process and react to surprises 3x as fast as they could in 1983. Even if they could, at 2x the speed your braking distance increases 4x. No amount of traction control or electronic nannies can make up for this. Nor can the electronics bypass the laws of physics - I think for many they provide a false sense of security.

And while there have been huge improvements in passive safety too, they are tested at speeds like 40mph, not the 90mph+ it is estimated Vince's car was going. This is why Teslas have the highest crash safety ratings there is, while also have the highest rate of fatal accidents.

Not to take away from the tragedy that is Vince's death. I enjoyed many hours playing MoH and CoD as a youth and this is extremely sad news. But as a car enthusiast, I am using this as a sober reminder of how quickly things can go wrong at speed.

lysace

5 hours ago

If that crash video on X is accurate he was racing on public roads. If so, zero sympathies.

anonzzzies

6 hours ago

I still rather drive (get driven) a modern tank like suv. Or truck/bus conversion. I see these young/hip people spend countless hours in the gym, spending 1000k+/mo on supplements etc to 'live forever' only to wrap themselves around a tree at a young age on some superbike or car.

riazrizvi

9 hours ago

I‘m in the habit of speeding, I think it’s closely tied to the mental stresses you push yourself into, in sedentary, intellectual work. Thankfully I no longer own a car/motorcycle, and have other physical outlets now, to better balance it all out. I’m only here now myself at 55 through luck.

switchbak

8 hours ago

No, I don’t think that’s it. Almost everyone one I associate with does similar kinds of work, and I don’t see that same willingness to expose them and others to undue risk like that.

sublinear

7 hours ago

I agree those desires come from stress and that sedentary work can cause stress, but it's not the only or even primary stressor for many.

Working from home has forced me to be more deliberate with my free time and how I get away. I tend to choose exercise and am rarely in rush to where I'm going anymore.

tibbydudeza

7 hours ago

Call Of Duty II was one of those games I will never forget in my life - it was like reading Lord Of The Rings.

lofaszvanitt

2 hours ago

They started at Electronic Arts with MOH. They left EA and went to Activision. Under Infinity Ward they created MW2, which is maybe the only digestible COD game ever made. They got bored with ATVI by doing COD day and night. At the time the rumor was they wanted to make scifi games, but ATVI forbade them. So they formed Respawn and went back to EA. TitanFall 1-2 were just terrible games, and EA also botched the marketing (like they usually do when they didn't want a franchise to grow wings). And seemingly they were doing Battlefield at EA lately.

bitwize

8 hours ago

I was like whoa, he was on BOTH the tentpole military-simulator-aspirant FPS franchises? That's like George Lucas being called over to work on Star Trek.

The world lost a titan. No pun intended.

tapoxi

5 hours ago

He also produced Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the best game in that series. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward were born from that game.

hamza_q_

9 hours ago

Thanks for COD: MW2 (2009), Vince. The game of my childhood. Rest in Peace.