Video game designer Vince Zampella died in a fiery car crash on a Los Angeles highway on Sunday. He was 55.
Vince was driving a 2026 Ferrari GTS when he lost control and struck a concrete barrier on Angeles Crest Highway. The passenger was ejected from the car.
Cell phone video captured the speeding Ferrari emerging from a tunnel in the San Gabriel Mountains, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Witnesses cheered as the Ferrari roared past them. But the cheering stopped when the sports car struck the barrierl and burst into flames.
Bystanders risked their lives to pull the ejected passenger away from the burning vehicle. The passenger later died from his injuries.
Vince was trapped inside the fiery wreckage and died at the scene.
The winding mountain road is notorious for speeding and aggressive driving.
Caution: Video contains profanity and scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers.
The creator of Call of Duty and Battlefield 6 was killed in a car crash
Vince Zampella lost control of his Ferrari as it exited a tunnel, crashed into a barrier, and caught fire.
Zampella was driving and died at the scene. The passenger was thrown from the car by the impact and… pic.twitter.com/k87Mz0XrDe
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) December 23, 2025
Vince’s death was confirmed by Electronic Arts on Monday.
“This is an unimaginable loss, and our hearts are with Vince’s family, his loved ones, and all those touched by his work,” a spokesperson for Electronic Arts told the BBC.
Vince was 32 when he and two of his longtime collaborators designed “Call of Duty” in 2003.
The military-style first-person shooter game became one of the world’s most popular video games and the best-selling game in North America in November 2025.
Journalist and Game Awards host Geoff Keighley called Vince Zampella a “dear friend” in a post on X.
“While he created some of the most influential games of our time, I always felt he still had his greatest one ahead of him,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking that we’ll never get to play it.”
“He really cared about the player experience,” Keza MacDonald, the Guardian’s video games editor, told BBC Newshour. “He cared about making games, he cared about how people felt when they played and that really came across whenever you spoke to him.”
YouTuber MrRoflWaffles, a Call of Duty gamer with 2.4 million subscribers on Youtube, credited Vince with inspiring many gamers.
“You talk about the Mount Rushmore of gaming – he’s absolutely staple on that list of people,” he told BBC Newsbeat.
