Build A Rocket Boy, the Edinburgh, Scotland-based developer of MindsEye, has issued at-risk of redundancy emails to its around 300-strong UK workforce following the disastrous launch of the game.
Sources familiar with the goings on inside the embattled studio told IGN at-risk emails were also sent to staff at PlayFusion, which BARB acquired late 2024. PlayFusion, whose CEO Mark Gerhard became co-CEO of BARB as part of the buyout, is working on a different game — a fast-paced FPS called Ascendant which was meant to come out this year.
Last month, IGN reported that BARB had begun a redundancy process following the release of MindsEye. The standard 45-day consultation process kicked off on June 23, which according to UK law is triggered when an employer proposes 100 or more redundancies within a 90-day period. IGN understands Build A Rocket Boy currently has around 300 UK employees, with 200 abroad.
At the time, BARB issued a statement confirming the redundancy process, insisting the cuts will let the studio “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.”
Soon after MindsEye launched, BARB said it was “heartbroken” over the issues players had faced with the game, and promised to release a series of patches to fix the significant performance problems, glitches, and AI behavior bugs. Rollout of these patches has begun.
All the while, MindsEye’s troubled launch saw the developer cancel sponsored streams, with reports of players securing refunds, even from the normally stubborn Sony, surfacing online.
On Steam, which does not paint the whole picture of MindsEye’s current popularity, the game hit a peak concurrent player count of 3,302 on launch, but had a 24-hour peak of just 46 players. At the time of this article’s publication, 26 people were playing on Steam, where MindsEye has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating.
Story-driven action adventure game MindsEye was initially designed to be a part of Everywhere, the ‘Roblox for adults’ creation platform led by former Grand Theft Auto design chief Leslie Benzies. BARB eventually switched to focus on MindsEye, but it has so-far failed to do the business for the company.
Meanwhile, BARB sources told IGN that Benzies finally addressed staff following the release of MindsEye in a brief video call yesterday, July 2. According to two people present who asked not to be named in order to protect their careers, Benzies insisted BARB would bounce back and relaunch MindsEye, blaming the studio and the game’s struggles on internal and external saboteurs, among other things.
The comments rekindle memories of those issued by Mark Gerhard ahead of the release of MindsEye. The co-CEO hit the headlines for claiming there was a “concerted effort” by some to “trash the game and the studio,” suggesting people were being paid or using spam bots to post negative comments. The boss of publisher IO Interactive, which makes the Hitman games, subsequently issued a denial.
BARB sources told IGN that internally, there is a desire for a MindsEye redemption arc that would eventually see it become successful for the studio. But as staff face an anxious wait to discover their fate, there are serious questions over whether BARB will be able to fulfill its post-launch roadmap for content, including the promised multiplayer mode, on time.
Earlier this week, BARB released MindsEye’s third post-release update on console, with a PC release to follow. “We’ve watched hundreds of hours of gameplay footage and reviewed player feedback across multiple channels to prioritize the most pressing issues and improve the experience for all our console players,” the studio said.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
