“I think at that time there was no speech at all about changing the genre. We just tried to create a good campaign so that everything would work and fit the ground for further sequel. Our work was progressive, and not as a broth of all kinds of thoughts. Something like that."

Vince Zampella about the development of Call of Duty

Recently, I noticed this trend: I more and more often choose a game, a film and a book not according to the criterion of genre affiliation, but by the author, so to speak, the creator, and you have noticed this behind yourself? For example, the films of James Cameron, Quentina Tarantino and Michael Bay have long become a common house, and looking at the line “Author”, you already know what to expect and what is not – not. Things are just the same with games. In recent years, Hideo Kojima has been considered a “folk” genius; or rather, not so, he has long been a “popular” genius, and with the release of Death Stranding the topic has again become so relevant. However, you know, not only him; The game industry is rich in “robbed” diamonds and literally in every genre its representative deserves attention, but the hero of this blog is Vince Zapopell – “Father Call of Duty”.

I will immediately make a small note: I least of all I want to find out how much Zampella deserves “Kojima from 10”, how “brilliant” his genius is, sorry for the tautology, but here it is necessary. You know, a person is characterized by his actions, and the developer is his products, and I think this is like a suitable “unit of dimension”.

The story began, as is customary from the "case", but let me a little retreat. The end of the 90s and the beginning of the 00-xx was the time when the shooters ruled the Balm about the Second World War. Sey’s theme replaced with science fiction shooters and was then very popular, and one of the pioneers was the Medal of Honor series, whose author was Stephen Spielberg himself, one of the most famous directors of our time.

The original Medal of Honor was released in 1999 and received recognition, and the creators, Dreamworks Interactive, were literally immediately acquired by Electronic Arts, which was already thinking about large Games money, and with the same agility was announced by a fast sequel – Medal of Honor: Underground. Meanwhile, Mr. Spielberg still dreamed of the thought of creating a cinematic game, reflecting the horrors and tragedy of war. MOH and MOH: Underground, of course, took a big step in this direction, but were limited by the “iron” “old woman PlayStation”, which could not convey large -scale battles, crowds of soldiers and so on. To develop a new EA game, they attracted a third -party studio, 2015 Inc., Spielberg himself personally agreed with the head. Developers of classic MOH, DreamWorks Interactive, “sent” to make MOH: Frontline for PlayStation 2.

Stephen’s plans were really ambitious, in fact, the next game was supposed to become a kind of adaptation, more precisely, a game of game, now the legendary, and then just an outstanding, film called “Save Private Ryan”. Tom Kudirka, Chapter 2015 Inc., Apparently understanding the importance, complexity and volume of the project, I decided to “strengthen” his team with additional developers, among whom were Vince Zapopell and Jason West. Well, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, as a result, met the expectations of the players, became another step in the development of cinematic shooters, and even now, be sure, to the question: “What is the“ medal ”the best in the series?-, Most will answer – Allied Assault.

"Evening with Infinity Ward"

“By the way, that team until now is held together in our studio. So, the main team was magnificent. But there is one nuance – we did not like the conditions in which we worked, so we all decided to leave. And here we said: – Hey, why don’t we leave together, we are the guys respecting ourselves, – so we left, founding Infinity Ward."

Vince Zampella

After a little time, 2015 Inc. She repeated the fate of her predecessors – she was also bought by EA, but parts of the employees, among whom were the west and Zampella, the deal seemed not very promising and they chose to leave. Having founded a new studio called Infinity Ward, the departed employees began cooperation with Activision and created new intellectual property (IP) – Call of Duty. The first part of the now famous series was based on the ideas of MOH: Allied Assault, but became “wider”-instead of the American campaign, they also added British and Soviet, thanks to the latter, she also paid attention to the CIS Region, in many ways she received the “Game of the Year”, and Bobby Kitik, which had already owned 30% of Infinty Ward shares, I bought the remaining package.

Call of Duty 2, in my opinion, is one of the best shooters about the Second World War, it was working on shortcomings and flaws, the game took an even greater step in cinematography and militant, which sin to hide, now and then the scenes from films, in particular from the “enemy at the gate” in the main role were recognized. In addition, the game was one of the starting projects on the X-Box 360 along with Halo 3 and perfectly sold it, as they say, “you give a new generation of games” the new generation of consoles ”. However, it was only the beginning, only the beginning.

“Fans of the Call of Duty series will receive the same abundance of kinematographic elements as in Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2."

Jason West on E3-2007

"Modern Warfare offers a modern setting player. This game is not about Iraq, but a fictional war in Russia unleashed by Zakhaev, who enlisted the help of al-Asada nAnd the Middle East."

Vince Zampella https://kingdomcasino-uk.com/login/ on E3-2007

Released in 2007, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare no longer just stepped into cinematography-she was thoroughly stamped. Direct and production became even more convincing, the setting of the modern war refreshed the series, the gameplay became as verified as possible; every minute was literally calculated, and the action changed one after another – it was simply impossible to get bored. Separately, it is worth noting the multiplayer, who also did not remain stamping in place. Weapons customization, creating their unique classes, awards for a series of murders, opening things for experience points – all this, if it did not come to network shooters from COD 4: Modern Warfare, it was “reinforced” there, for which he was awarded the highest praise and awards.

“During the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, we talked with the soldiers who returned from the war, we visited military bases and consulted with employees."

Jason West on E3-2007

“I think Call of Duty players will love Modern Warfare, it truly transfers the game experience“ code ”to modernity and improves it, leaving everything, then what you love the series, and the added elements will be able to impress you, give a feeling that something previously unprecedented. New high -tech weapons, interaction of soldiers with armored vehicles and air support. You know, moments when helicopters provide you with support is one of the best things in the game."

Vince Zampella on E3-2007

After 2 years, Infinity Ward released a sequel, which also successfully developed the ideas of the previous game and was generally the quintessence of all the best that was in the series. Again, the “Game of the Year” awards from various game publications and recognition from the players, but alas, not everything was as rosy as it seemed.

“Well, you know, all the games that we made were in the framework of the interior of the Second World War, and for us there was a kind of task to somehow continue to develop our brand, to start working on something more unique and new. And of course, our gaze was challenged, Activision did not want to change the successful formula, the change of setting. They did not want Modern Warfare. We were required to continue the Second World War."

Vince Zampella

It is difficult to say exactly when the problems began, nevertheless corporate ethics and so on, but some of the information was still publicized. La Times, thanks to the leak, gained access to the correspondence between the top managers of Activision, in which they expressed dissatisfaction with Infinity Ward, for the reason that the studio did not have time to prepare the Modern Warfare 2 gameplay version for the Microsoft press conference on E3-2009, and Vincer Vincer Vincer. And Jason West was accused of ignoring the publisher’s calls to speed up work. Later, after the MW2 exit, the studio was accused of sabotage with EA, supposedly they deliberately delay the release of DLC (which came out a month later, as mentioned in the letter) for the best start of sales for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the Kotaku portal provided the proof of Lincoln Herschberger to his colleagues. Well, in early March, the famous scandal occurred.

On March 1, 2010, a meeting was held between the leaders of Infinity Ward and Activision employees, after which, Zamplepell and West, led out of the office accompanied by security. Three days later, the former top managers filed a lawsuit against the publisher in which 36 million demanded. dollars (royalties from sales of the last game) and additional rights to the trademark "Modern Warfare", the creators of which, they actually were, later the amount of 400 million appeared. dollars as compensation for violation of the contract and other inconvenience. The court sessions continued for more than 2 years and were mostly useless, the publisher stood on his own, the developers-on his own, and the conflict managed to settle without the help of a court in May 2012, most likely managed to find a “monetary compromise”.

Return

“Well, we initially did not think that it would be only a multiplayer, in general we looked towards the single. Remembering the team that we had … we were a rather small team and understood that the single would not work at that time, we did not have resources to do this and that and then. All this was quite problematic. There were no strong walls behind us and we decided to do only the multipleor."

Vince Zampella about the development of Titanfall

A month after the “March” events, the Zapopella-West duo open a new studio-Respawn Entertainment, the core of which was formed by former Infinity Ward employees, who had gone after their leaders. In fact, for Vince and Jason, it was a return to the electrician Electronic Arts, although formally everything appeared as “cooperation”. Their next project was a shooter called Titanfall, which was presented to the public at E3-2013, which was also evolutionary, like all previous works, however, nothing surprising, but at the same time the information about Jason Vesta’s departure from the team that occurred in May 2012 was confirmed. There were even rumors that this Vince himself forced the old friend to leave, and their quarrel on the basis of “compensation from Activision”, supposedly Jason decided to make concessions to the publisher. West then left not only from the studio, but from Gamdev, too, it seems, according to “family circumstances” (he returned in 2019, works in Epic Games).

“Yes, we had such a person, it was Jason West, he was a kind of leader who summed up what kind of game would be as a result."

Vince Zampella

What is Titanfall? Well, imagine a typical Call of Duty gameplay, give you the opportunity to move along the walls, make huge jumps and decorate everything with a “cherry on the cake” – add titans, and voila, you are ready. Despite the adoption of the first part, it was not without flaws. Titanfall 2 retained all the advantages of the original, while correcting the mechanics and balanced everything, in addition, there was also a plot campaign with the "branded" handwriting of ex-infinity Ward. The game looked good next to the games of the Battlefield and Call of Duty series, and the latter was completely frankly borrowed by the very “vertical” gameplay in Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3.

“You know, we received a lot of reviews from fans; I can’t say that we have always used something directly from them, but we changed a lot of things from which we are tired to make the game more deliberate, because after the hour game you really start to burn a little."

Vince Zampella about Titanfall 2

Battle Royale

“Your expectations are your problems,” but it turned out differently … The players were waiting for Titanfall 3, but received a new Battle Royale, which on the one hand is not quite at all, but on the other – why not. It just so happened that by the time of APEX Legends, only a lazy developer did not try himself in this concept, someone was more successful, but by February 2019 the market was already full of all sorts of different royal battles, among which the most popular were PUBG and Fortnite.

APEX Legends was released on February 4, 2019 without any announcements, teasers and trailers-it is generally difficult to imagine such an anti-advertising in the modern game industry, especially for the Electronic Arts games, this usually turns around, but it turned out all the other way around and a month later 50 million played in it. Human. What allowed APEX to shoot like that? It is possible that in the game from the very beginning you could choose a unique character instead of a faceless, possibly thanks to the respuna during the rink, and possibly just the desire of the players to try something new-most likely something from this.

Back to the future

At the beginning of this year, it became known that Vince Zampella was appointed head of Dice La (in the past DreamWorks Interactive, EA Los Angeles, and then Danger Close), and in Respawn Entertainment he will remain the “main trainer” (apparently formally formally preserved).

Dice LA has an initially difficult creative fate: the studio periodically experienced reorganization, reformation, and so on. EA saw a universal “workhorse” in Dice LA, over the years under the protectorate, the studio made both the games on the film licenses and the strategies, but the most of course the shooters remained the main.

After not very successful Moh: Airborne, EA, three years later I again made an attempt to grab part of the market from Call of Duty and released the restart of the Medal of Honor, which “stars from the sky was not enough”, but at the same time was not a failure – such a strong “mid -Middle”. In my opinion, the main mistake was the uncertainty: on the one hand, the game tried to show a real war, and on the other, she was supposed to replay another emergency on her field – the Hollywood field. Alas, you won’t sit on two chairs, or rather you can sit down, though it will not be very convenient, but in any case, the game left hope for a sequel.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter went out in 2012 and was very strange … In the Katseni it was a real military drama dedicated to the military and their families, which was new for the Militari Shuters-such topics were not yet raised, and it’s great that the developers decided on this, but in the key for the jokes, the gameplay was not so good. You know, playing Modern Warfare Warfighter, you will have a periodic effect of deja vu-“somewhere I already saw it”, “something familiar” and so on, but nevertheless, Dice La tried to do well, tried to integrate the elements of gameplay from racing, which additionally makes diversity, and for this they undoubtedly, plus. In addition, other problems were affected by this: working with the Frostbite engine and lack of assistance from Dice, the refusal to support after the release from Electronic Arts – all this only aggravated.

The above did not pass without a trace and Dice La literally fell into “disgrace” – there were no more projects, mainly the support of the already released products and “finishing” for the Swedish dice.

With the advent of Zapopella, Dice La had a good help to prove Electronic Arts that they are worthy of more than supporting the already released products of the Swedish Dice. In general, this is a mutual history, Vince received a team who could first, technically and tendally carry out his work, and secondly, capable of thinking creatively, and the studio-the sensible leader who at this “dog ate” and is still one of the best creators of the militar-players, and without a doubt that has not yet said his last word in the genre.

Perhaps we will see the games of the Battlefield series focused on the plot campaign, maybe another subserry in the style of not license plate Bad Company, but most likely EA will again revive the Medal of Honor brand. Well, what the words “he did the Medal of Honor then – will do it now” than not the slogan for election campaign The start of the "defrosting" of the franchise? In any case, something interesting is waiting for us. Well, let’s see.