Video game developer Vince Zampella on December 21 died in a car crash on a highway in Southern California, leaving behind a monumental legacy in first-person shooter games.
He was a man on the move, going from studio to studio guided by a creative force that contributed to classic franchises and standalone titles like Call of Duty, Titanfall, and Apex Legends. Indeed, few developers today can claim to have forged the first-person shooter genre as decisively—and repeatedly—as Vince Zampella.
Here are 7 games that received Zampella’s Midas touch:
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002)
Dreamworks Interactive’s debut is one of the first video games that was so cinematic it may as well have been a film, what with Zampella and Steven Spielberg’s close involvement in development.
You enter the shoes of Lt Mike Powell, an elite World War II soldier in the battle against Nazi Germany, as he goes through a slew of historically accurate missions.
Call of Duty (2003)
One of the most reputed names in first-person shooter games was first intended as a sequel to Medal of Honor, before it was renamed.
Rather than building on WWII shooters, this game chose to redefine the genre with its squad-based combat, frenetic pacing, and excellently written narrative, making players feel like a part of a larger war machine.
Call of Duty 2 (2005)
Despite building perfectly on Call of Duty (2002), this remains one of the most underrated games in the franchise.
You get to play with a set of four individual campaigns, split into three stories of WWII soldiers facing impossible odds.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was not only a major leap in time, but also a major creative risk that paid off spectacularly.
Introducing kill streaks and progression systems that influenced the next decade of multiplayer shooters, this FPS classic is said to have the same cinematic quality that made Medal of Honor so memorable, but taken to the next level, as was the case with Zampella’s ouevre.
Titanfall (2014)
This bold, fresh invention was Zampella’s first major project after exiting Infinity Ward to build Respawn Entertainment’s FPS game about a 6v6 battle involving ‘Pilots’ and their giant robotic exoskeletons in war-torn outer space colonies of the Frontier.
Built around speed and verticality, rather than cover, the game later became a touchstone for movement-based shooter design.
Titanfall 2 (2016)
Two years after Titanfall (2014), Zampella had perfected the first game in the series, with a title widely regarded as one of the finest FPS games with both multiplayer and single-player campaigns.
One of its missions, ‘Effect and Cause’, has also been frequently cited as the gold standard for narrative pacing and level design in gaming.
Apex Legends (2019)
Apex Legends takes a chip off the old Titanfall block—it is even set in the same universe as the latter—while also making sure to instantly disrupt the battle-royale gaming space in 2019.
Taking place nearly two decades after the Titanfall games in a region on the outskirts of the Frontier, this hero-shooter was lauded for its fluid movement, refined gunplay, and revolutionary ping system—all while being a free live-service game with an ever-growing roster of characters.