Vince Zampella, CEO of Respawn and Saviour of the Shooter, is taking over DICE LA

Under Zampella’s leadership, the studio is looking to release their first game with details of the project expected soon.

Dice LA have had a weird existence. They’ve gone through multiple names, developed multiple games, been acquired a whole bunch and now they’re just…sitting. Starting life off as DreamWorks Interactive, they brought the Medal of Honor series to life in 1999 and were eventually scooped up by EA, rebranded to EA Los Angeles and told to develop more of those rough-and-tumble World War 2 shooters. They then changed their name again to Danger Close in 2010 and were told to continue making those rough-and-tumble World War 2 shooters, except take the World War out and put the conflict in the Middle East in to keep things topical. Thing is, those Medal of Honor games were pretty “meh” which took the franchise out of rotation and saw Danger Close rebrand to DICE LA, assisting DICE’s main office in Stockholm in developing the Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront games.

Okay, now that we got the history lesson out of the way, let’s move onto what’s important: The present. Vince Zampella, CEO of Respawn Entertainment, developers of the Titanfall games, Apex: Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, has announced that he will be heading up DICE LA and guide them in their quest to release their first game.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Zampella spoke about the necessity to rebrand DICE LA going forward, saying, “We want people to say, ‘This is a destination you can go and make new content’. I think they’ve kind of gotten the branding that they are the support studio for Dice Stockholm. I think rebranding is important for showing people, ‘Hey! Come work here. We’re going to do some amazing things.’”

Wile Zampella will be taking charge over at DICE LA, he’s certainly not stepping away from Respawn. Rather, he’ll be transitioning into a “head coach” kind of role, whatever that means, leaving their previously released games under the watchful eyes of Stig Asmussen and Chad Grenier. There’s been no word yet on what kind of game DICE LA will be working on but it does strike me as interesting that Zampella has taken over at the studio most known for Medal of Honor just a few months after Respawn announces that their Oculus exclusive will be Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. What does all of this mean? Honestly, I haven’t the foggiest. Never mind me, I’m just speculating.

Last Updated: January 7, 2020