Respawn Entertainment

Respawn Entertainment, LLC
Private
Industry Interactive entertainment
Founded 2010
Founder Vince Zampella
Headquarters Sherman Oaks, California, U.S.
Key people
 Vince Zampella (CEO)
Number of employees
 95
Website www.respawn.com

Respawn Entertainment is an American video game development studio founded by Jason West and Vince Zampella, who created and were responsible for the development of the Call of Duty franchise at Infinity Ward.

History

On March 1, 2010, Activision amended its report with the Securities and Exchange Commission to add notification that two senior employees of Infinity Ward were being fired due to "breaches of contract and insubordination". This coincided with Jason West (Infinity Ward president, game director, co-CCO, and CTO) and Vince Zampella (CEO and co-founder of Infinity Ward) editing their profiles on the website LinkedIn to list Infinity Ward as a former employer as of March 2010. Reportedly, a meeting between Zampella, West, and Activision staff occurred on March 1, after which neither Zampella nor West were seen; this was followed by the arrival of security guards at the studio.[1][2] It was later confirmed by Activision that West and Zampella had been dismissed, and had been replaced on an interim basis by Activision CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Ackrich.[3]

On April 12, 2010 the Los Angeles Times reported that West and Zampella were forming a new independent gaming studio known as Respawn Entertainment. They were seeking funding from Electronic Arts through the EA Partners Program. Like Bungie, West and Zampella will retain the rights to all intellectual property produced by them in the future.[4][5][6] As of July 10, 2010, 38 of the 46 Infinity Ward employees who resigned from that studio following the firings of West and Zampella revealed through their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles that they had signed on with Respawn Entertainment.[7][8] According to comments by the employees, Respawn was expected to begin work on its first project in May 2010.[9]

Games

Title Engine Release date Platform(s) Publisher Aggregated scores[Note 1]
Titanfall Customized Source March 11, 2014[10] Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One Electronic Arts 86.5%
Untitled Non-Titanfall video game[11] TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA
Untitled Titanfall sequel[12] TBA TBA Xbox One, Windows, PlayStation 4 Electronic Arts TBA
  1. ↑ Scores are the average of the GameRankings aggregate score received for all platforms.

EA Games Label president Frank Gibeau revealed at E3 2011 in June 2011 that Respawn Entertainment's EA-published shooter was "sci-fi oriented" and would allow the publisher to "compete with things like Gears and Halo".[13] Gibeau also stated that EA would release Respawn's project when it sees an "opportunistic" window.[13] Later that month, Respawn released a blurry teaser image of its unannounced game via the official website launched that day.[14] Respawn further released another blurry image, and teased the new game with mo-cap shot.[15][16] In April 2013, Respawn registered a trademark for the name Titan,[17] and it was reported that Respawn game was an always-online Xbox exclusive, although nothing has been confirmed.[18]

In June 2013, Respawn Entertainment officially debuted its game at E3 under the name Titanfall and on October 22nd revealed the release date of the game to be March 11th, 2014 in North America, and March 13th in Europe.

In March 2015, it was announced that Respawn is developing a sequel to Titanfall.

Trivia

References

  1. ↑ Thorsen, Tor (2010-03-02). "Top Infinity Ward devs fired for 'insubordination,' lawsuits 'expected' - News at GameSpot". Gamespot. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  2. ↑ Fahey, Mike (2010-03-03). "Report: Modern Warfare Dev Head Leaves Company". Kotaku. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
  3. ↑ Gonzalez, Annette (2010-03-02). "Activision's Future Plans For Call Of Duty Call For New Developer - News". GameInformer. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  4. ↑ Pham, Alex; Ben Fritz (2010-04-12). "Jason West and Vincent Zampella's new call of duty". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  5. ↑ Grant, Christopher (2010-04-12). "Respawn Entertainment announced by ex-IW heads, partnering with EA". Joystiq. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  6. ↑ Reilly, Jim (2010-04-12). "Infinity Ward Founders Developing A 'Big Blockbuster'". IGN. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  7. ↑ "Who Remains At Infinity Ward ?". Cynicalsmirk.com. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  8. ↑ "Who Remains at Infinity Ward?". cynicalsmirk.com. 2010-05-25. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
  9. ↑ Kollar, Phil (2010-04-23). "Seven More Join Infinity Ward Exodus, Seven Respawn". GameInformer. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
  10. ↑ Andy Robinson Editor, CVG Follow @Espio1 (2013-06-06). "News: Respawn's debut game is 'TitanFall'". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. Retrieved 2014-03-28.
  11. ↑ Makuch, Eddie (2014-12-19). "Non-Titanfall Game in the Works at Respawn". GameSpot. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
  12. ↑ Luke Karmali (March 12, 2015). "Titanfall 2 Confirmed, Coming to Xbox One, PS4 and PC". IGN. Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Andy Robinson Editor, CVG Follow @Espio1 (2011-06-08). "News: Respawn title is a 'sci-fi shooter', will 'compete with Halo, Gears' - EA". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. Retrieved 2014-03-28.
  14. ↑ "News: Ex-Call of Duty boys tease new game with image". ComputerAndVideoGames.com. 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2014-03-28.
  15. ↑ Cullen, Johnny (2011-12-20). "Respawn releases another blurry image from first project". VG247. Retrieved 2014-03-28.
  16. ↑ Cullen, Johnny (2012-01-05). "Respawn further teases new game with mo-cap shot". VG247. Retrieved 2014-03-28.
  17. ↑ Phillips, Tom. "Respawn registers trademark for Titan". Eurogamer.
  18. ↑ Yin-Poole, Wesley. "Respawn game is reportedly an always-online Xbox exclusive". Eurogamer.

External links