Toki Tori developer Two Tribes announced that it is effectively rebooting, paring down its staff to two core team members as it refocuses on the publishing side of its business.

Founders Martijn Reuvers and Collin van Ginkel remain with the company, but all previously-employed designers and programmers were laid off at the end of last year as a result of the restructuring. While the development arm of Two Tribes is no more, its parent Two Tribes Publishing is unaffected, and will continue to release new games in a partnership with a newly-formed daughter company.

Two Tribes' founders cite an extended development period and low sales for Toki Tori 2 as the driving factors behind the company reboot. "We've decided to move away from creating custom technology and focus on what's readily available," the announcement reads. "As a result we'll be working with a much smaller team on our next game, a 2D side scrolling shooter, which will be re-using the existing Toki Tori 2+ engine."

Responding to fan questions via Twitter, Two Tribes notes that it will consider Wii U and PC releases for its next project, which it describes as a mixture of the arcade classics Metal Slug and Gradius.