In February, Drew McCoy, executive producer of "Apex Legends," left Respawn Entertainment after a decade as producer of "Titanfall" and "Titanfall 2." He did not say what he would be doing next, but assured his Twitter followers that he would not be leaving the game for long.

It certainly wasn't a joke: McCoy and former Apex Legends lead software engineer John Scheiling (who actually left Respawn a little before McCoy) announced today that they have launched a new studio called Gravity Well, and they've been working on a big budget game development, saying he wants to "shake things up."

"We started the studio because we want to make games. We want time to iterate on everything and get ideas and feedback from the entire team. We are building this studio to last for decades, and that won't happen without putting the team first," McCoy wrote on gravitywell.games.

"We make the health of our team our absolute top priority. That means we are anti-crunch. That means good rewards. It means that everyone at Gravity Well has creative freedom. We don't want anyone making all the decisions, because if someone else makes all the decisions, the work becomes less enjoyable and the final product is not as good.

This approach to development seems consistent with McCoy's experience working on "Apex Legends" at Respawn, where Epic Games has been blasted for the brutal crunch required to support the epic battle royale "Fortnite" While Respawn is sticking to seasonal updates for "Apex Legends".

"I think we should look at the quality of life for our teams," CEO Vince Zampella said in 2019. 'We don't want to overwork our team and diminish the quality of the assets we offer. We want to try to raise it."

Scheuring said that creativity suffers when a development studio has more than 100 employees, and to avoid falling into that trap, the Gravity Well team will be limited to a maximum of 80-85 employees. As a practical matter, the studio is also designed with remote work in mind.

"One of Gravity Well's core values is to expand diversity, so we are excited that we are not hampered by relocation or work visa issues," he wrote.

"We want to hire the best talent in the industry, no matter where you live.

Neither of them throw any hints about Gravity Well's first project, and the job listing offers no insight: for example, the designer listing does not mention any experience requirements for a particular genre, and the studio is "looking for experienced, passionate, technically and technically competent designers we are looking for." It states only that they are "looking for experienced, passionate, and technically competent designers.

Applications for artists, engineers, and animators are similarly vague.

Details are scarce, but Gravity Well is definitely worth noting. Prior to their tenure at Respawn (I know Apex Legends is a hot topic right now, but I would be remiss if I didn't remind everyone that Titanfall 2 was amazing and deserved a big hit), they worked at Infinity Ward on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2.