MindsEye developer Build A Rocket Boy has released Update 4 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, insisting it remains “committed to refining” the game following its disastrous launch.
In July, IGN reported that Edinburgh-based BARB had issued at-risk of redundancy emails to its around 300-strong UK workforce after MindsEye flopped at release.
Soon after MindsEye came out, 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.
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. Steam concurrent player numbers, which do not tell the whole story of a game’s popularity, were worryingly low.
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.
In July, Benzies told staff that the studio would bounce back and relaunch MindsEye, blaming its struggles on internal and external saboteurs, among other things.
In a post to the MindsEye community issued today, September 5, BARB said “we remain committed to refining MindsEye and enhancing the gameplay experience. Ongoing updates will continue to be shared.”
To that end, Update 4 introduces a range of UX improvements, numerous performance enhancements, and tackles bugs. Update 4 is significant in terms of size, weighing in at 15GB on PC, 7.2GB on PS5, and 12.1GB on Xbox Series X and S. Update 5 will deliver a “major” performance, combat and enemy AI system improvement, BARB teased.
This week, the CEO of MindsEye publisher IO Interactive, which is working on 007 First Light, responded to the game’s launch, telling IGN: “that was definitely tough, right?”
The question now is whether BARB can save MindsEye by encouraging players not just to come back to the game, but to actually buy it.
MindsEye Update 4 Patch notes:
IMPROVEMENTS
Environment
- Trailer Tanks in Free Roam now explode when shot at
- Several improvements have been made to architecture and assets to help with performance
- Improved weather change when player leaves the Factory at the start of Robin Hood Mission
- Improved traversal on A New Job and Loose Ends missions where player may get stuck in certain assets
Visual Effects
- Cutscene VFX performance improvements
- Cutscene VFX management changes and Niagara system updates to reduce CPU spikes and overall frame rate
- Disabled ambient rubbish to improve performance
NPC
- Small performance improvement on Robots
- NPCs that are aiming and in-cover now look more natural
Art
- General performance improvements: shaders, assets, collisions
UI
- Resolved inconsistent dropdown menu behaviour in graphics settings, ensuring reliable input response
- Added the ability to skip cinematics
Audio
- Audio Optimisation regarding Mass Vehicles
- Music adjustments throughout MindsEye missions
- Added Destruction SFX on Glass Bottle Props
Missions
- Conditional dialogue now triggers with more natural pacing
- The companion drone torch is now automatically enabled when entering or starting in dark areas
Animation
- Optimised the ambient and civilian animations
- Exit/entry animations no longer play for driverless vehicles
Gameplay
- Aim assist will focus on enemies in vehicle turrets over the driver
BUG FIXES
- Various Mission flow bug fixes
- Fixed pixelated reflection in Rocket Transporter window
- Fixed Industrial vent asset to help with performance
- Resolved an issue where players transitioning from Meeting Marco Silva to Executive Paranoia could drive through objects and fall through the map
- Fixed ambient animation glitches in Welcome to Redrock City
- Fixed an issue where camera rotation was lost after cutscenes
- Several lighting LOD pop issues fixed in cutscenes
- Fixed a bug where burning vehicles wouldn’t transition to destroyed state
- Fixed several traversal issues in world where the player may get stuck
- Fixed an issue in The Ziggurat where a hole in wall allowed players to climb through and trap themselves
- Fixed an issue in Oh Lily! where players could get stuck in Morrison’s Silo without a way to get back out
- Fixed collision on glass roof of Silva Factory
- Fixed a number of Character Model issues in cutscenes that made them look deformed and stretched for a few frames
- Resolved Silva’s teeth looking too bright on medium/ lower settings on PC
- NPCs no longer freeze when interacting with certain objects
- Weapon Wheel hover SFX is now triggered correctly, without delays
PC only
- The character Red Sand Male 25 is now available for use in Build.MindsEye
- Fixed a UI issue where backing out of a submenu in ‘Build’ caused the second-last selected tile to remain highlighted
- Fixed a bug where the ‘effects’ tile would remain highlighted after returning to Build mode from Play mode
- Fixed an issue where the placement header text overlapped UI elements in the asset settings menu when playing in French
- Fixed a bug causing specific Korean characters to appear invisible in vehicle spawner labels
- Fixed a localization issue where the French translation of “Total PI” overlapped with the performance impact number in the top toolbar
- Replaced the incorrect icon used for the MindsEye menu button in Play/ Build with a proper menu icon
- [Min Spec Performance Improvement]: Disabled Nanite compute materials as it has a negative effect on GPU rendering time in our game, especially on older Nvidia Graphics Cards.
- [Min Spec Performance Improvement]: Fixed an issue where our Nanite render pipeline always used the Hardware Rasterizer path rather than correctly splitting between Hardware Rasterizer and Software Rasterizer
Console only – PlayStation and Xbox
- Fixed a UI focus issue where the graphics settings tab failed to auto-focus on the first option when accessed on PS5 and Xbox
BUILD.MINDSEYE PATCH NOTES – PC ONLY
IMPROVEMENTS
Publishing UGC Content
- Added a toggle to enable or disable Logic Nodes from being captured in the thumbnail capture of UGC Content
Logic Nodes
- Timer Nodes improved; you can update or refresh their value at any time through multiple other logic nodes, and can now be refreshed infinitely
- Timer Logic Nodes now support decimal places up to .000
- Custom UI Nodes updated to always be set to “Node Active” = True, by default
Attributes Menu, Catalogue & Versioning
- Minor QoL & screen position improvements to the Creator HUD, Attributes Menu & Tools
- Minor QoL improvements to naming, duplicated items, missing thumbnails or icons in the Assets Catalogue
- Updated the search functionality in Assets Catalogue to take into account both object name and the tags
- Added a warning when the player reaches the maximum number of allowed versions when creating new versions
- Added missing hotkeys to the Controls Panel for Inserting Path Points
Featured Stamps Updates
- Multiple fixes and QoL improvements to existing set of Featured Stamps
- Added more Stamps to the Featured Stamps tile
BUG FIXES
- Removed EVERYWHERE vehicles from Build.MindsEye – those vehicles were made accessible unofficially, and we will bring them to MindsEye when they are ready
- Fixed an issue where the AI Spawner Spawn limits and Performance Scores of spawners were not correctly calculated
- New Performance Score applied to AI Spawners as follows:
- AI Spawner – Performance Score: 10 / Max Quantity Allowed: 10
- Individual AI NPC – Performance Score: 6 / Max Quantity Allowed: 100
- Fixed an incorrect controls description for Build Collision Control List Keys; now correctly displayed as (B) instead of (P)
- Improved camera behaviour in Build.MindsEye: your last position is now saved more frequently for a more reliable creation experience
- Fixed an issue with erratic camera behaviour when using the Group Macro Node
- Fixed an issue where players were unable to like Stamps with long names
- Fixed an issue that prevented players from editing Stamp Descriptions that exceed the 220 character limit
- Fixed an issue that caused vehicles to move very slowly, or not at all, when using Custom Speed on the Drive To Node
- Grid snapping is now enabled on the XY Plane by default
- Fixed an issue with Destructible Assets not being selectable
- Fixed issues with Filtering in the Assets Catalogue
- Fixed various issues with the Vehicle Selection UI Node
- Fixed multiple issues with the Transform Variable Node and Advanced Transform Node parsing incorrect values into the Location and Scale Overrides
- Stamp Attributes now display the correct Thumbnail based on the current Version selected
- Fixed various issues with spawn-points and spawning in Build.MindsEye
- Fixed various issues with the Physics Force Node causing objects to disappear
- Fixed an issue where Foliage Assets were not searchable in the Catalogue
- Fixed a crash caused when attempting to ungroup a group within a group
- Fixed a crash caused by undoing creation and deletion of large Stamps
- Fixed an issue with some deprecated assets being displayed in the library – which were discernible by having “DONOTUSE” in their name
- Fixed texture issues on a number of assets in the Build.MindsEye Catalogue
- Fixed an issue with missing Localisations for the Light Effects in Build.MindsEye
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
