Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 opens its credits with a quiet in-memoriam screen for Vince Zampella, the man who co-founded Infinity Ward and helped create Call of Duty in the first place. Zampella died in a car crash in December 2025. He was in his mid-50s.
Geoff Keighley first pointed out the dedication, and VGC's Chris Scullion reported that the credits are given over to Zampella's memory. He isn't the only name honoured - the memoriam also remembers other Call of Duty developers who have died.
Why his name carries weight
Zampella's fingerprints are on a huge chunk of the shooters people have played for the last two decades. He led Infinity Ward through the original Modern Warfare run, co-founded Respawn - Titanfall, Apex Legends, the Star Wars Jedi games - and in recent years oversaw Battlefield, including last year's Battlefield 6, which sold strongly out of the gate.
He died on 21 December 2025 in a single-vehicle crash; a passenger in the car also died, and Electronic Arts confirmed his death at the time. A credits dedication is a small thing against a loss like that, but it's a fitting one, given his work is the reason a lot of people are holding a controller at all. If you want the measure of the game itself, the early word on the campaign was mostly positive.
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