‘Max Mustard’ Studio Lays Off Majority of Staff & Closes Office, Vows to Continue Work on XR Games

Toast Interactive, VR veteran studio behind Richie’s Plank Experience (2017) and Max Mustard (2024), announced it’s closing office and laying off a majority of staff.

The Gold Coast, Australia-based studio revealed the news in an X post (seen below), noting that the “majority of our talented staff have suffered redundancies.”

This follows the studio’s first layoff round in November 2024, which affected 10 employees. At the time, the studio maintained that while Max Mustard was “one of the highest-rated games on both PSVR 2 and Meta Quest, it sadly can’t sustain a large indie team.”

It’s unclear the number of employees affected at the time of this writing. The studio says it isn’t closing entirely however, noting that remaining staff “will continue to improve Richie’s Plank Experience and Max Mustard with a lean approach.”

Founded in 2016 by wife and husband team Toni and Richard Eastes, Toast Interactive saw early success with the release of Richie’s Plank Experience, which let users sync a physical plank to its virtual counterpart to tiptoe above death-defying heights.

Originally developed for HTC Vive, Richie’s Plank Experience went on to support Rift, Quest and the original PSVR. Additionally, the studio says it’s still developing a version for PSVR 2.

Then, in 2024, the studio released the well-received VR platformer Max Mustard, which felt like the spiritual successor to Sony Japan Studio’s Astro Bot Rescue Mission (2018). Initially launched on Quest 2 and above, the plucky platformer eventually made its way to SteamVR headsets and PSVR 2.

This comes amid ongoing turbulence in the XR gaming industry, which largely began in early 2024, with significant closures including Meta’s Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo, Echo VR), Sony’s London Studio (PlayStation Worlds, Blood & Truth), and indie developer Archiact (DOOM 3 Quest port).

More recently, several XR studios have downsized through staff layoffs, including VRChat, Fast Travel Games (Action Hero, Mannequin), Soul Assembly (Drop Dead series), XR Games (Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded), and nDreams (Frenzies, Vendetta Forever).

Here’s the full post:

To everyone in the VR community: we are closing the Toast Interactive office. It’s a heartbreaking decision that we never wanted to make. The majority of our talented team have suffered redundancies, and we will assist where we can with their next journey.

We’re incredibly grateful and proud of everything the team has accomplished. So much talent and passion went into the creation of Max Mustard and every single accolade speaks volumes. We will continue to improve Richie’s Plank Experience and Max Mustard with a lean approach.

We want to thank and acknowledge everyone who has been part of our journey at Toast.

Sincerely,
Toni and Richard