Apex Legends Veterans' Studio Lays Off Most Staff Before Revealing a Game

Gravity Well cut more than 40 developers, most of its team, after losing its funding partner this summer, its leaders said.

Gravity Well, a studio started by Apex Legends and Titanfall veterans, laid off most of its team Tuesday before the public saw its first game.

More than 40 developers are out, GamesIndustry.biz reported, citing a statement from the studio's three leaders, Drew McCoy, Jon Shiring and Mon Saetern. They said Gravity Well lost its backer during the summer, and that the search for new money hadn't paid off before the old money ran out, Insider Gaming reported.

The statement, which went up on the studio's LinkedIn and Bluesky accounts, opened with the promise Gravity Well was built on. "When we started Gravity Well our goal was to create the best place in the world for developers to do their best work," the leaders wrote, as quoted by Gaming.net.

That promise came with numbers. The studio's website, as Gaming.net described it, said Gravity Well would top out at 80 to 85 people, because teams past 100 get slow and siloed. It called itself anti-crunch and said developers deserve a real share of the profits from their games. Most of the staff worked remotely, with an optional office in Los Angeles for people who lived nearby.

It was still growing this year. The studio's Bluesky feed carried hiring posts into June, Gaming.net found. The last one, on June 5, said it was still taking applications for a UI/UX artist and a principal engineer. By the leaders' account, the funding partner was gone sometime that summer.

The leaders said everyone on staff was told as things unfolded and knew layoffs were possible if no new backer turned up. "We are truly sad that we couldn't get it done in time to keep the team together," they wrote, in lines GamesIndustry.biz and Insider Gaming both quoted.

McCoy and Shiring started Gravity Well in 2020 after leaving Respawn Entertainment, Insider Gaming reported. The studio billed itself as an independent AAA shop, and in all that time it never showed its game. Its job listings described an entirely new world and a new IP, and its principal engineer posting asked for Unreal experience.

What's left is a much smaller team, with no headcount given. The leaders said that group will keep fighting for survival but called the studio's future "uncertain" in the current state of the industry, according to GamesIndustry.biz.

The ask in the statement wasn't aimed at players. It was aimed at other studios: hire the people Gravity Well just let go. The leaders told those developers the cuts weren't a reflection of their skill, Gaming.net reported, and that whoever picks them up will get a stronger team for it.

Source: insider-gaming.com, retrieved October 8, 2026. Other sources: gaming.net.