It would be very safe to say that EA is very with its acquisition of Respawn Entertainment after its dominating 2019. Not only has Respawn given EA a bonafide Battle Royale live service game to compete in the field it also delivered a great Star Wars game, which we labeled our game of the year in 2019. You can argue that since EA contracted the exclusive Star Wars gaming license in 2013 this was the best game that has been released and could have possibly kept Disney from cancelling the contact in  2023.  

Apex Legends has been a surprise hit that has maintained constant growth since its release in February of 2019. As of now the game has been downloaded over 70 million times with that number growing According to EA, the current season of Apex has seen the most growth and profit for the game. Clearly the team at Respawn has had some bumps along the way trying to figure out the monetization scale and have the game in a good place with holiday events, Battle passes and l cosmetic that you can buy.  As a regular player of Apex myself, I do feel that while the game has made some strides to not be as aggressive as it was at the start, Apex still needs to improve upon its in game purchasing model.  

Breaking out from the mold of first person shooters, Respawn also developed the critically and commercially acclaimed hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It was the second highest selling game of November, trailing only behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and was also featured on many games of the year list from the media. In our review which I’ll post a link at in the description we called it a terrific game that didn’t reinvent the wheel but created something special by fusing together elements of many games in such a way that elevated the whole package higher than its individual components. 

Clearly EA top brass have been paying attention because late last week, The LA Times ran a lengthy interview with CEO and cofounder of Respawn, Vince Zampella, that he would be taking over as lead for Dice LA. Dice LA is a satellite office of DICE who have made some great game over the years including the Battlefield series among others. 

This is great news for Zampella, as I’m sure this job comes with more freedom in addition to more responsibility and better pay. However, this is also great news for gamers as we have seen the effects of having Zampella highly involved in a project as back at Inifinty Ward he was largely responsible for turning call of duty into what it is today with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. When combined with Apex Legends, Titanfall and Fallen Order it becomes very obvious that Vince knows how to craft great games. Having Zampella leading another studio just means that his fingerprints will be on more projects that will hopefully lead to the same quality and success as his portfolio.

Zampella is great at recognizing and managing talent as the new promotion to lead DICE LA shouldn’t affect Respawn at all for a few reasons. First, Vince states “his role will be the same” As it seems today, Vince likes to give opportunity to other developers within the studio who can help add something new. The second reason is that the studio heads should remain the exact same as they were before this announcement. Stig Asmussen who was brought on back in 2013 to change the studio into “interactive storytellers” rather than just be the studio that makes great shooters, will lead the Narrative driven branch. Chad Grenier who has been working with Zampella since back in the Call of Duty days will continue to remain head of Apex Legends. Finally, Peter Hirschmann will be in charge of the Medal of Honor VR endeavor that Respawn announced earlier this year. During the interview, Zampella even hinted at their being other segments of the studio that is working on unannounced projects by saying “there might be more”

It’s clear that Respawn is in great position at the moment with funding and trust from EA. Partner this with great leadership from Zampella with high talent looking after each arm of the studio and we should be seeing many exceptional projects for years to come. As for the actual taking over as lead for DICE LA, I’m not sure why they didn’t just rebrand it right away rather than label it DICE at all for now. It’s clear that in the interview Vince wants to attract top talent to this studio and wants to make it clear that this will no longer be a DICE support studio. In the interview Zampella said DICE LA will be “separate from DICE Stockholm and separate from Respawn.”

Laura Miele, chief studio officer at EA said in regards to Zampella leading DICE LA “I think under Vince’s leadership the expectation is to have them work on and create a game on their own”

As for how they plan to forge new content, Zampella said “We will probably rebrand. We want to give it a new image. We want people to say, ‘This is a destination you can go and make new content.  I think rebranding is important for showing people, ‘Hey! Come work here. We’re going to do some amazing things”

As I said at the start this is all great news for gamers. If you want to read the full article I’ll link it in the description, there is also a really great podcast interview with Stig Asmussen on IGN’s Unflitered with Ryan Mccaffrey. As well if you are interested check out our review of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. All of these links will be in the description.