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Posted by superpupervlad 12/22/2025

Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died(comicbook.com)
143 points | 98 comments
AceyMan 12/23/2025|
I drive this section of road 'spiritedly' myself¹, and I can attest that this particular spot is deceptive and can easily bite you. I wet my pants a couple of times by overcooking it (in both directions) before I finally got the hang of the proper entry speed, which is much lower than it looks approaching from either side.

Coming this direction, the tunnel makes it feel like you are going slower than you are due to the lack of passing references (trees, etc.). It's also downhill, so you are going faster than your foot/throttle angle makes it feel.

There is zero straight once you exit the tunnel; the turn begins immediately, and it is every so slightly off-camber; there is also, iirc, a little swell that unloads the weight just a little, which can be enough to matter. You need to stand on the brakes a couple of seconds before exiting the tunnel to get down to a navigable speed. The road surface is a little rough there; it's not lumpy or bumpy, but it's not butter smooth either.

Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made: it's the granite face of the mountain formed as a result of cutting the roadway itself. It's easily visibly in Google Maps with satellite view enabled (keywords: Angeles Crest Tunnels).

411, my work buddy was riding his '24 Gold Wing around the forest (for the first time, based on my briefing) that afternoon and got stopped (coming from the ascending/opposite direction) by the road closure just a few hundred meters from the accident site as LEOs and Emergency responders had just secured the area.

¹- I rent sports cars through Turo a few times a year and take them up there for fun. Among this year's choices were a 2024 BMW M2 (6-speed) and a 2024 Corvette C8. [edit: formatting]

rootusrootus 12/23/2025||
> It's also downhill

Going downhill is usually when I'm most conservative. The margin for error is a lot lower than when you're driving uphill. Get a little loose and gravity makes the whole situation much worse instead of helping bleed off speed.

officeplant 12/23/2025|||
>Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made

That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.

AceyMan 12/23/2025||
> That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.

Nodding thx for the correction. Understandably, I am not scanning the outside shoulder in this or any other technical section in the Angeles National Forest roadways. "Eyes on the road" is not just something your Dad would say when driving at speed on these (or any other) fast, twisty roads.

moomoo11 12/23/2025|||
I stopped going on 2 because of assholes who break the lane barrier.

It’s not a race track.

Broke ass (mentally poor is also a thing) motherfuckers driving rental supercars or daddy’s Ferrari at 100+ mph.

Imagine having millions of dollars and not being able to afford track day. Cheap ass, broke ass, losers. The whole lot.

rootusrootus 12/23/2025||
These days even regular cars are getting quite good at it. A couple cars ago I owned a 2018 Camaro SS 1LE. One day I was out dorking around on some twisty rural backroads -- and no, I do not break the lane markings, there are some limits to my madness -- and happened to glance down and notice that I was getting to the point where I was entering tight corners at 80 mph. That car had phenomenal handling, especially at that price point, but it scared me. The amount of potential energy that is being held in check between the suspension, tires, and road is pretty ridiculous at that pace. An unexpected patch of gravel on the road, an animal darting out, or some other asshat coming the other direction who is over the lane divider, and your odds of dying are remarkably high.

I settled for a much more sedate pace after that. And decided to focus on buying slower fun cars that aren't so inherently capable. Harder to get them up into that area of the physics equation where one unexpected variable becomes life threatening.

moomoo11 12/24/2025||
That's a great car.
OrangeMusic 12/24/2025||
?
ViktorRay 12/22/2025||
I remember playing the original Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 back in the day after I rented it from Blockbuster. That game was an incredible experience.

Thank you to Vince Zampella and everyone else who worked on that game for those memories.

Rest in peace

antonymoose 12/22/2025|
I remember seeing a Best Buy ad for it touting the “cinematic experience” of playing MW2 - and it truly felt like it, a real revolution in gaming.

However, I really stopped playing big titles since then. Are there any good “woah” games that took it another step further?

Gracana 12/22/2025|||
Titanfall 2 is a really good one. Not something I expected to have such a strong emotional element. I didn't know Vince Zampella's name, but it is another project of his, so it seems fitting to recommend it here.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (the original, I haven't played the sequel) was crazy good. Gameplay-wise it's fine, but story wise it is one of the most emotionally intense games I have ever played. I recommend going into it spoiler-free. Look it up and see if it's something you're interested in, and if you want to play it, stop reading and play it.

lukan 12/23/2025||
I also highly recommend Hellblade, as a deep emotional journey (but not the sequel).

If you are even slightly interested in celtic and germanic mythology and modern psychology, go for it.

tapoxi 12/23/2025||||
Titanfall 1/2 and Apex Legends were all huge. He recently produced Battlefield 6 which was also released to acclaim.
esseph 12/22/2025|||
A lot of it is iterations upon iterations, so it can be hard to pick out precise moments. There are great games out there.
dralley 12/22/2025||
Titanfall 2 was spectacular, and BF6 is easily the best entry in the franchise in the past decade+. Apex Legends is great too.

RIP.

toomuchtodo 12/22/2025||
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Zampella

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respawn_Entertainment

spondyl 12/22/2025||
RIP Vince. Whether you're a fan of FPS titles or not, the work of him and his teams have undoubtly helped to shape pop culture in some sense. One of my favourite games as a teenager (Battlefield: Bad Company 2) was arguably a reaction to his work (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) so in that sense, Vince played some small part in making me who I am today, even if I'd never thought about it before
bitwize 12/22/2025||
I was like whoa, he was on BOTH the tentpole military-simulator-aspirant FPS franchises? That's like George Lucas being called over to work on Star Trek.

The world lost a titan. No pun intended.

tapoxi 12/23/2025||
He also produced Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the best game in that series. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward were born from that game.
tibbydudeza 12/22/2025||
Indeed.
brador 12/23/2025||
The video is clear. He was speeding, tract the corner on exit straight into the wall.

3 kids, days before Christmas, passanger bopped too and DIAF while risking other road users for nothing.

Keep speeding to the tracks, reaper only knocks once.

tibbydudeza 12/22/2025||
Call Of Duty II was one of those games I will never forget in my life - it was like reading Lord Of The Rings.
xnx 12/23/2025||
Sad for their family and friends. Lucky that more weren't killed by his reckless driving.
chakintosh 12/23/2025|
Watched the crash video. Coming out of the tunnel way too hot, combination of speed and driver likely being blinded by the light caused him to drive straight out (likely understeer too) into the concrete barrier and strike at the right angle for it to completely peel the car like a tin can. Passenger was ejected while still attached to his seat (this isn't supposed to happen in a 600k car!!!)
officeplant 12/23/2025|
>this isn't supposed to happen in a 600k car!!!

Technically it isn't designed to handle someone fumbling it into a concrete barrier well beyond the speed limit.

chakintosh 12/23/2025||
Still, I've seen crashes way worse but the chassis didn't disintegrate like that. I'm even inclined to say the speed with which they crashed was mid at best.
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