Fired ex-Infinity Ward studio heads Vincent Zampella and Jason West have told Gamasutra that they are looking forward to getting back to doing what they love with their new independent studio.
Although they are calling Respawn Entertainment an independent studio, they have secured a publishing deal with EA – Activision’s biggest competitor.
While Activision has released a statement saying they are not surprised, given the “myriad of improper activities” Zampella and West supposedly undertook following the termination of their contract with the publisher. Activision is referring to the two allegedly trying to coax Infinity Ward employees into joining their new studio.
Zampella and West have responded, saying “we were fired! Once we were fired, we got a lot of interest in publishers.” West went on to tell Gamasutra that “what was really important was partnering with someone that understood our culture… and that we wanted to own our IP, and EA Partners was the best.”
It remains to be seen what the two will come up with given their new found freedom. They have only ever worked on military themed first person shooters, from Medal of Honour through to the award winning Call of Duty series. Whether or not there is space for yet another of these alongside EA’s own Battlefield: Bad Company 2, as well as an upcoming Medal of Honour game later this year, not to mention the Modern Warfare franchise, remains to be seen.
“I will say that EA today is a lot different than it was eight years ago,” says West, alluding to the recent public image turnaround the publisher has undergone. Once seen to be a greedy monopolistic company intent on exploiting developers, their image has softened in recent years, largely thanks to investments in a number of off-beat or risky new IPs, such as Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space.
The gaming public will be keeping a close eye on the cleverly named Respawn Entertainment, and I for one can’t wait to see what these two industry shapers have in store for the not too distant future.
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