Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella is to take charge of support team DICE LA, which will become its own studio entity under his leadership.
While the LA branch of Stockholm-based Battlefield developerDICEhas previously acted as a support team, Zampella plans to rebrand theEA-owned studio ahead of the release of a new game of its own.
Zampella will continue to overseeRespawn, theTitanfall,Apex LegendsandStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Orderdeveloper he co-founded in 2010 and which was acquired by EA in 2017.
“We will probably rebrand [DICE LA],” Zampella told theLA Times. “We want to give it a new image. We want people to say, ‘This is a destination you’re able to go and make new content.’
“I think they’ve kind of gotten the branding that they are the support studio for DICE Stockholm. I think rebranding is important for showing people, ‘Hey! Come work here. We’re going to do some amazing things.’”
Laura Miele, EA’s chief studios officer, added: “I think under Vince’s leadership the expectation is to have them work on and create a game on their own… They can go from a support team to a full stand-alone studio to create a new game offering.”
Respawn is currentlydeveloping Medal of Honor: Above and Beyondexclusively forOculusRift. Directed by Pete Hirschmann, the VR title is scheduled to be released this summer.
Meanwhile, Fallen Order directorStig Asmussenis set to continue leading a narrative-driven branch at Respawn, while Chad Grenier is overseeing the ongoing development of character-based shooter Apex Legends.
Zampella also reiterated that Respawn looksunlikely to return to Titanfall any time soon, telling the LA Times the series had begun “to read as generic sci-fi.”
“That’s terrible for me to say about my own game,” he added, “but we wanted something more identifiable by going into characters… To identify with a character, either by play style or because you like who they are and what they stand for, it was important for us to take that next step. Character-based is now super important to what we do.”
