Respawn denies Bethesda collaboration

The presence of Jason West and Vince Zampella at last weekend's QuakeCon event does not imply that the pair are collaborating with ZeniMax Media or any of its studios, according to Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard.

Present at the event, sister site Eurogamer asked Howard whether anything should be read into the attendance of West and Zampella - as they represented their new studio Respawn Entertainment on a panel entitled "Building Blockbusters". Howard answered simply: "No, you shouldn't".

"The Respawn guys... They're doing their game and I think EA is publishing it," he added. "But we've been friends with them for a long time. Tim and I know Vince and Jason pretty well and we thought that that would make a cool panel."

Respawn was founded earlier in the year, following the fallout from West and Zampella's expulsion from Call Of Duty creator Infinity Ward. Although independent the studio was created with funding from the EA Partners Program.

The new studio is yet to announce its first project, with West indicating that they were still evaluating "technology options". Speaking as part of the QuakeCon panel, which also comprised Howard and Id Software's Tim Willits, the most controversial comments were regarding video game reviews. According to Zampella there was "nothing more frustrating" than reviewers that had not completed a game.

"I've seen reviews where people have written things about the game that are untrue - like that feature doesn't exist, so they obviously didn't play through the entire game," said Zampella.

Given the critically acclaimed track record of Infinity Ward it was unclear what specific titles or reviews he might be referring too, although he implied his concerns were over the lengthier multiplayer modes of the Call Of Duty series than the single player modes.

In taking questions from the audience the subject of West and Zampella's exit from Infinity Ward was put off limits, although one audience member did ask about the general subject of handing sequels to other developers - with Call Of Duty developer Treyarch mentioned by name.

West's response to the question was to put his head in his hands, apparently out of comic despair.