{"id":649962,"date":"2025-12-23T07:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T07:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/649962\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T07:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T07:58:15","slug":"vince-zampella-call-of-duty-co-creator-dies-in-california-car-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/649962\/","title":{"rendered":"Vince Zampella, Call of Duty co-creator, dies in California car crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Officials said the person on the vehicle&#8217;s passenger seat was ejected while the driver remained trapped. It is unclear if Zampella was driving the car and who the other person inside was. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both people inside the vehicle died. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For unknown reasons, the vehicle veered off the roadway, struck a concrete barrier, and became fully engulfed,&#8221; the California Highway Patrol said in a statement to the BBC. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Zampella created Call of Duty with his long time collaborators Jason West and Grant Collier in 2003. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Partly inspired by events in World War II, the game has sold more than 500 million copies making owners Microsoft&#8217;s Activision one of the most profitable gaming companies. It has also spawned an upcoming live-action film.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Call of Duty franchise was not his only success. He was also behind other widely popular games including the Medal of Honor, Titanfall and Apex Legend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He really cared about the player experience, he cared about making games, he cared about how people felt when they played and that really came across whenever you spoke to him,&#8221; Keza MacDonald, the Guardian&#8217;s video games editor told BBC Newshour.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2010, Zampella and West were fired from Activision, which publishes the Call of Duty games, and the pair were subsequently locked in a long dispute with the company which they settled out of court in 2012.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At Electronic Arts, Zampella worked on Battlefield 6, which is seen as a direct competitor to Call of Duty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Infinity Ward, the American company that developed Call of Duty, said Zampella &#8220;will always have a special place in our history&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Your legacy of creating iconic, lasting entertainment is immeasurable,&#8221; the company said in a statement on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials said the person on the vehicle&#8217;s passenger seat was ejected while the driver remained trapped. It is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-649962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-technology","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115767823891281092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}