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MindsEye had everything needed to be a breakout success. The project was headed by Leslie Benzies, whose name carries a lot of respect in the gaming industry due to GTA.
His new studio, Build A Rocket Boy, promised something fresh with MindsEye, which is a cinematic story-driven action game with ambitious ideas.
But instead of impressing at launch, the game soon became one of 2025’s most criticized releases, riddled with bugs, dull missions, and poor performance on every platform.
Was MindsEye Too Expensive for What It Offered?
The biggest surprise was how badly it flopped, with early critics labeling it a technical wreck.
The Steam reviews got swamped with negative feedback, and many players said they should’ve been refunded before reaching two hours.
Critics were equally harsh, describing the game as a pale imitation of what was expected.
Paying $60, players expect quality, depth, and a smooth ride, not something clearly incomplete.
How Did a Rockstar Veteran React to MindsEye?
In the sea of negativity, Obbe Vermeij, a former Rockstar developer who influenced GTA’s creation, made his voice heard.
He tried MindsEye mainly because he was curious and knew some of the developers.
While most were tearing it down, Vermeij actually found a few things to admire.
He praised the cinematic cutscenes, voice acting, and story tone, calling them “top notch.”
Even so, he didn’t hold back on the obvious flaws: bugs, lackluster missions, and an unready technical core.
He argues that a $40 launch price and patched bugs could have changed MindsEye’s outcome significantly.
Would $40 Have Saved MindsEye’s Reputation?
For many players, a cheaper price wouldn’t have made all the problems disappear, but it would have made expectations more realistic.
Instead of being viewed as a would-be blockbuster, the game might’ve been judged as a flawed but interesting mid-tier title—more in line with what it actually delivered.
The $60 cost made the experience worse, considering the game runs for just over 10 hours.
Meanwhile, problems were growing inside Build A Rocket Boy as the studio reportedly held internal meetings after the backlash, with Benzies hinting sabotage might have contributed to the rough launch.
According to staff members present during one of the calls, he hinted at both internal and external forces working to harm the game’s reputation.
His co-CEO had brought up similar points before the release, so these claims weren’t new, but IO Interactive rejected the idea completely. They insisted the game should speak for itself. And, unfortunately, it did.
Was the Game Sabotaged or Just Bad?
It’s clear MindsEye broke down on its own due to boring tasks, stiff combat, poor optimization, and an open world that lacked depth.
Some even said the city of Redrock looked decent at a glance but had nothing meaningful under the surface.
All of that piled up into a game that simply wasn’t ready to meet the expectations it had set.
Rumors say the studio might be aiming for a comeback and possibly a full relaunch similar to Cyberpunk 2077.
Some sources say a sequel might already be in early development. But without fixing what didn’t work the first time, a redemption arc will be hard to pull off.
Cyberpunk had strong foundations buried under its bugs. MindsEye is missing those entirely.
In the end, Vermeij didn’t say MindsEye was perfect, but he believed it had good qualities that were overlooked because of its price and technical problems.
His suggestion of a $40 price tag isn’t just about money; it’s about what people expect for that money. And in this case, expectations were too high for a game that wasn’t built to meet them.
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