Vince Zampella, the guy behind Call of Duty and the boss at Respawn Entertainment, passed away on December 21, 2025, after a horrible single-car accident on Angeles Crest Highway up in California. He was 55, driving this sleek red 2026 Ferrari 296 GTS that somehow veered off, smashed into a concrete barrier right after a tunnel, and then went up in flames. Sadly, his passenger, Zach Quiseng the old drummer from The Summer Set didn’t make it either. Cops are still looking into what happened, and speed seems like it might’ve played a part, but nothing’s official yet from the BBC report on December 22.
A tweet from X.
Then there’s this touching 28-second video tribute that actress and car nut Emelia Hartford put up originally, and it blew up on X. It’s set to that classic Belinda Carlisle tune, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” showing these sweet clips of Zampella and Hartford cracking up, hugging, and geeking out over fancy cars. She was a good buddy and work pal of his, and her caption hit hard:
“A family lost their father, an industry lost a legend, and I lost my best friend… no, I’m not ok” (from her Instagram, ms.emelia, on December 23).
It really showed a different side of him, you know, the fun dad type beyond all the big games like Titanfall, Apex Legends, and Battlefield.
But as it spread on X, things got messy. Some dude @dom_lucre reposted it and called Hartford his wife by mistake, which confused a ton of people. Zampella actually split from his ex-wife Brigitte back in 2015, and he’s got three kids who survive him: Quentin, Kyle, and Courtney (per People magazine, December 24). Folks on X jumped in with community notes and comments to fix it, like
“Not his wife… just a friend. Check your facts”
from @user123 on December 24. Stuff like that just shows how fast misinformation can fly when news breaks and people chase likes over getting it right.
The actual crash got caught on video by some bystander, and that sparked all kinds of debates about what’s okay to share. The clip’s pretty graphic, with the Ferrari all wrecked and on fire, and it went viral quick. One user on X was like,
“This is someone’s dad stop sharing this,”
It reminded a lot of us of the Paul Walker crash back in 2013, making people question where we draw the line between news and just being insensitive (from Grassroots Motorsports, December 23).
No doubt, Zampella left a huge mark. Call of Duty’s sold over 425 million copies and raked in $30 billion, and Apex Legends has like 130 million players (BBC again, December 22). EA said his death was “unimaginable,” and big names like Geoff Keighley called him a “titan” in the industry (USA Today, December 23). His daughter Courtney posted this emotional thing on Instagram, saying he was her “best friend,” which really drove home how much he meant as a family guy (Daily Mail, December 24).
