To kick off the new year, Respawn Entertainment co-founder Vince Zampella seems to have received a promotion of sorts within EA's larger studio structure.

In a report from the Los Angeles Times today, it was announced that Zampella is now set to lead DICE LA, which is the Los Angeles based division of the studio known for working on franchises such as Battlefield and Star Wars Battlefront. DICE LA, in the past, has largely served as a studio that aids the main team in Stockholm with its larger projects. Now, under Zampella, the developer is said to begin working on its own games. As of now, information on what the studio's first title could be hasn't been divulged.

As part of this move, Zampella has stated that DICE LA will likely rebrand in the future, to more distinctly set the studio apart from DICE proper. “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 they’ve kind of gotten the branding that they are the support studio for DICE Stockholm," Zampella said. "I think rebranding is important for showing people, ‘Hey! Come work here. We’re going to do some amazing things.’”

However, just because Zampella will now be heading up DICE LA doesn't mean his work at Respawn is over. Zampella clarified that he will still play a major role in helping to run Respawn, but now that the studio has a more stable infrastructure, his day-to-day work at the company has diminished a bit. Currently, Stig Asmussen (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order), Chad Grenier (Apex Legends), and Peter Hirschmann (Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond) lead different teams within Respawn and will continue to do so moving forward.

It's definitely an interesting move to see happen within EA and is hopefully one that can be positive in the long term for the publisher. Taking into account the number of studios under EA that have closed over the years, it definitely seemed like the company needed to start building out some new development teams. Considering Zampella's past pedigree of work at multiple companies, hopefully, whatever comes out of DICE LA in the future will be worthwhile.