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MindsEye came out of nowhere and all of a sudden started waving more red flags than a Communist Party parade. In the course of a few months, it went from an unknown cyberpunk-ish GTA contender to one of the most talked-about games of 2025. But was it even real? Was it all a scam? Well, now that we can get our hands on it, those questions finally seem answered. MindsEye from Build a Rocket Boy Studios is certainly real.
Even so, the reception to MindsEye is predictably ‘Mixed’ on the platform that’s supposed to represent it best (PC/Steam). It’s a standard tale of a rushed release– terrible performance, outdated visuals, lackluster mechanics. Not a great start for a relatively new studio, especially one headed by the former president of Rockstar North– someone who has contributed much to GTA‘s success.
The game promised a lot and delivered very little. Still, one key lesson MindsEye has spotlighted is to remind us all exactly how not to launch a video game.
Signs That Couldn’t Be Ignored
Even from its first big trailer a few months ago, MindsEye was already raising some eyebrows. The trailers barely showed any gameplay footage, and the first actual gameplay was only revealed barely a month before the game’s release date of June 10. It’s not clear who’s at fault here, but most games tend to reveal their gameplay trailers at least more than six months before the actual release.
This “marketing strategy” has led many people to assume that MindsEye was fake, and who could blame them for that assumption? Gamers are skeptical, especially after the numerous blunders of 2024 and the past years.
Of course, the whole notion of selling a video without gameplay reeks of “snake-oil salesman.” And that’s practically what MindsEye did before finally dropping a gameplay trailer. Since the trailers mostly contained hype hooks like pre-rendered cutscenes and city showcases, MindsEye‘s devs unintentionally (or maybe even intentionally) positioned the game as some kind of GTA/Watch Dogs/Cyberpunk 2077 hybrid that could compete with such games.
Needless to say, it was smoke and mirrors. The whole city of Redrock felt empty, and you couldn’t even steal cars or use any vehicle other than what the game provided you. Gameplay is also barebones and is on the same level as 2014’s Watch Dogs or 2015’s GTA V (Story Mode), except it’s about as long as a Call of Duty campaign.
The few days prior to the June 10 release also saw some of the shadiest examples of video game marketing ever, as MindsEye‘s dev studio lacked one crucial thing: transparency.
No Review Copies, No Streaming, Only B-Rolls
The recent Summer Games Fest 2025 should’ve been a big opportunity for MindsEye to prove the naysayers wrong, but the dev studio, Build a Rocket Boy, kept raising some red flags. For one, no review codes were available, and they were only to be sent out on launch day. That was already not a good sign.
Even journalists and content creators who were invited to the past “playtests” couldn’t even play the game and could only watch someone from the dev studio play. No capture footage prior to release was allowed, and most media outlets were only allowed to show B-roll of supposed gameplay footage.
Fast forward a few hours from release, and some streamers managed to snag themselves an early copy of the game. Naturally, they streamed MindsEye, and most of the time, dev studios or even publishers love this free marketing. However, Build a Rocket Boy joined the Twitch chat of these specific streamers and started “asking” streamers to stop streaming or promoting MindsEye, with the only reason being that it’s going to release soon anyway.
Again, spectators of the whole interaction were quick to assume that Build a Rocket Boy is so insecure about MindsEye that they don’t want ignorant potential buyers to see how bad it is in the hopes of selling as many copies of the broken game as possible.
It Wasn’t Pretty Behind the Scenes Either
Those hoping that MindsEye would turn out well despite the red flags and after giving it the benefit of the doubt, or hoping that it might get better in the future with a few patches, might want to sit down. Because even Build a Rocket Boy’s “rocket” is looking like an Apollo 13 instead, based on certain events and testimonies.
For one, Build a Rocket Boy’s co-CEO accused the critics and everyone who reacted negatively as smear campaigners paid by competitor studios, which was obviously an unfounded implication.
Then, a week before MindsEye launched, Chief Legal Officer Riley Graebner and Chief Financial Officer Paul Bland resigned seemingly abruptly, and in a time when MindsEye needed them. Executives in a game dev studio jumping ship so close to the port was again interpreted by many as a sign of turbulent internal affairs in Build a Rocket Boy.
Around the day of the game’s release, employee reviews on Build a Rocket Boy’s Glassdoor page detailed how the studio took away their benefits one by one and even demanded a sudden 6-day crunch, while others point to the poor management and how the studio is now a sinking ship. It should be noted, however, that Glassdoor reviews are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Is MindsEye Just the Beginning for Everywhere?
At this point, I’m not sure whether Build a Rocket Boy’s Everywhere project is going where it’s promised. Everywhere, for reference, is essentially a Roblox-style video game and game platform, but with next-gen graphics and more powerful creation tools for users to customize and create their own games within a game.
MindsEye is basically a slice of Everywhere, released as its own standalone video game. However, this recent red flags fiasco for MindsEye and its failure at marketing and communication is a huge blow to Everywhere and Build a Rocket Boy’s plans and reputation. Coincidentally enough, Rockstar Games’ very own GTA 6 is rumored to have a similar game platform and creation system (and perhaps even one of the reasons for its delay).
If those rumors are anything to go by, Build a Rocket Boy with Everywhere and MindsEye essentially put itself in direct competition with GTA 6 and tried to sprint towards that new, shiny gold rush for the video games industry before Rockstar could, only to stumble on its own feet.
Hopefully, MindsEye walked so Everywhere could run, because paying $60 for a game creation platform disguised as a blockbuster doesn’t leave a good impression. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but perhaps ex-Rockstar President Leslie Benzies should’ve taken a page from Rockstar Games and delayed MindsEye like GTA 6 so it could’ve been better.
