Vince Zampella, the longtime game developer best known for co-creating Call of Duty, died as a result of a car crash in 2025. His legacy in the industry is long, and his influence includes the upcoming Star Wars Zero Company. As it turns out, the project got underway when Zampella cold-called a veteran XCOM dev to find out about his dream game.
“I’d left Firaxis after about 22 years of working there and making strategy games my whole career,” as Gregory Foertsch, who served as art director on the modern XCOM games, tells PC Gamer. “I knew I wanted to stay in the strategy, the tactics space,” but it seems he hadn’t figured out the particulars of his next move – until a late night in his home office.
“I’m sitting in my office with the lights out and my computer on, my wife’s asleep, my kids are asleep, and the phone rings,” Foertsch says. “It’s this number that I don’t recognize. For some reason I answered it, and the voice on the other end said, ‘Hey, Greg, this is Vince Zampella. I heard you have a game you want to make. Can you tell me about it?'”
The game Foertsch described to Zampella that night eventually served as the basis for Zero Company. “He eventually said, ‘Do you think you can make a Star Wars game with this?'” Foertsch explains. “And I said, ‘Sure, different game, but yeah, absolutely.’ Meanwhile, I’m thinking, ‘This is insane, right? Like, this is crazy. It’s Star Wars.’ And so I said, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ And Vince was just like, ‘Pitch me.'”
This phone call would’ve happened quite some time ago, as Respawn announced its collaboration with Foertsch’s new studio Bit Reactor on a Star Wars strategy game way back in 2022. That project was only unveiled as Star Wars Zero Company in 2025, so it’s clearly been a long time coming, but PC Gamer’s recent preview coverage has made it seem very much worth the wait.
Zampella worked on the acclaimed Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for EA, before he co-founded Infinity Ward and served as producer on Call of Duty, the military shooter series that would quickly supplant Medal of Honor as the market leader. Zampella would have an acrimonious split from parent company Activision and eventually founded Respawn with EA in 2010, releasing the beloved Titanfall games and eventually going on to lead the Battlefield franchise.
Foertsch describes Zampella as a “titan of the industry.”
“Devastating”: Industry leaders including EA, Respawn, and Infinity Ward pay tribute to Battlefield lead Vince Zampella.
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