Things are going from bad to worse for Build A Rocket Boy. The studio founded by former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies is reportedly facing a mass layoff of over 100 employees after MindsEye launched to become the worst-rated game of 2025. Despite rushed hotfixes to address performance issues, some players have been getting refunds on PlayStation 5 as the sci-fi shooter sits at “mostly negative” on Steam.
IGN reports that the redundancy process (read: layoffs) has been initiated at the company’s roughly 300-person UK office. The law there requires a 45-day consultation process before people are fired when 100 or more layoffs are proposed within a 90-day period. It’s not yet clear what the scale of the cuts will be. The company also reportedly has about 200 developers working abroad.
That’s a massive team size and is reflective of Build A Rocket Boy’s ambition beyond MindsEye, which includes a scaleable gaming platform called Everywhere that would function like a metaverse unto itself. The recently shipped shooter about mental implants and memory loss in a near-future desert city inspired by Las Vegas was once meant to be just a side project showing off Everywhere, but seemingly became the short-term focus as that larger project stalled.
Just prior to launch, studio founder Benzies was talking about leveraging user-generated content tools to keep players engaged for the next 10 years. No review codes were made available to media or content creators, with some paid sponsors having their streams abruptly canceled after the game started becoming a punching bag on social media.
Published by Hitman maker IO Interactive, MindsEye billed itself as a Mafia-esque thriller in an open world with GTA-like driving. Despite some visually impressive cutscenes and intriguing story beats, however, many players panned the gunplay and NPC behavior. Performance issues on PC and poor framerates and plenty of bugs on console led Sony to make exceptions for some of its players and give refunds outside the normal window.
Unlike Cyberpunk 2077, which was pulled from PlayStation after release in 2020 over various issues, MindsEye remains available to buy and play on console and Steam, where only 38 percent of reviews from players rate the game positively. Players are currently waiting on a third major update expected before the end of June. Just prior to launch, Build A Rocket Boy’s CEO accused naysayers of being paid bots and both the chief legal and financial officers abruptly left the company.
Update 6/23/25 1:28 p.m. ET: Build a Rocket Boy confirmed upcoming layoffs in a statement to IGN but said it remains focused on continuing to update MindsEye and deliver on its year-one post-launch roadmap:
We can confirm that we have had to make the painful decision to notify our hardworking team of some internal changes at Build A Rocket Boy. While we are working to reassign roles for as many of those impacted by these changes as possible, sadly we are initiating a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies. This decision has not been made lightly, and we are committed to handling this process with transparency, fairness, and respect for all employees. We will provide further details to the team over the coming weeks.
The launch of MindsEye has been a significant milestone for Build A Rocket Boy, but we know that we still have a lot more to do to grow our community in the coming years. The challenges we’ve faced have only strengthened our resolve and, while we are deeply saddened by today’s decision and thankful to our incredible team, this shift allows us to focus on delivering ongoing updates and performance optimization for MindsEye, while also ensuring the long-term success of Build A Rocket Boy’s future ambitions.
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