“We’ve got very strong evidence of this and conducted quite thorough investigations over the months since launch. We’ve identified parties involved, and it’s now with the authorities both [in the] U.K. and U.S. to deal with. I can confirm that they’re assisting us with this investigation, but it’s also in their hands now. We’ll leave them to do what they do, make their arrests or any announcements in due course. I think we’re not saying anything further at this stage on that. We’ll just let the natural course of justice take its path.”

It’s a rather tricky situation all around. Although we tried to be optimistic about the chances of a reversal of MindsEye’s fortunes after its disastrous launch, that prospect’s looking fairly bleak in the wake of a update that could invite further controversy (instead of actually, you know, making Redrock an exciting place to visit this time around). While time will tell if the allegations of sabotage are true, we think it’s safe to say that Blacklist is going to be a memorable addition to a forgettable game, although it may not be in a way that Gerhard is expecting.

All that’s left now is to wait, as a release date for the update isn’t confirmed at this point, but we’ll let you know when that happens. For what it’s worth, we think naming it Blacklist is a little on the nose.

Following the end of its publishing collaboration with IO Interactive, which saw MindEye’s upcoming collaboration with the Hitman franchise come to an abrupt end, the rumors are now the latest additions to a string of bad news that has plagued the embattled studio founded by Leslie Benzies, a former Rockstar Games executive.

Despite MindsEye’s lofty ambitions, it proved to be an average title that failed to impress critics and players before it crashed and burned last year. However, Build A Rocket Boy has been trying to bring about a revival of its fortunes, although those efforts may be in vain at this point.

With around 50 developers potentially facing the loss of their jobs, the studio might be hard-pressed to bring its plans for MindEye’s redemption to bear any fruit. While it remains to be seen if the rumors are true, they certainly won’t help rebuild the studio’s crumbling image in the eyes of the world. As always, stay tuned for more updates as the downward spiral of Build A Rocket Boy continues.

INFO Origami – Co-développeuse du très mal né MindsEye, la société Build A Rocket Boy France est placée en liquidation judiciaire.Il s'agit de l'antenne montpelliéraine du groupe UK fondé par l'ex-Rockstar Leslie Benzies.BARB France emploierait encore une 50aine de personnes à l'heure actuelle.

— Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres (@gautoz.cool) 2026-03-23T15:35:08.147Z

A press release from IO Interactive announced the transition, stating that the two companies were working to ensure a smooth conclusion. “IOI Partners’ involvement with MindsEye comes to an end, except for any essential transitional functions required to transfer publisher-of-record status to Build A Rocket Boy…In light of this separation, the Hitman mission announced in June 2025, planned as a crossover event within MindsEye, will no longer be released. Both IOI Partners and Build A Rocket Boy recognize the anticipation this collaboration generated among the community and express their appreciation for the support shown by the players.”

Build A Rocket Boy continues to entertain collaborations with other partners; however, it turns out that the rumors regarding the Hitman collaboration’s cancellation turned out to be true. Whether or not that’s a disappointment to you depends on your excitement for the whole thing, but with MindsEye being as unimpressive as it was, we’re probably not going to be feeling too bad about this one.

It’s unclear what the future holds for the embattled studio and its equally troubled game. However, perhaps things could improve once the ambitious ten-year plan from the studio’s co-CEO Leslie Benzies comes into effect and revitalizes it. We’re not holding our breath, though, especially with Benzies having taken a temporary leave of absence.

Further in the statement, Gerhard decided to double-down on previous claims of sabotage against the studio. Without going into too many details, in his statement, the CEO has said that working with external partners and legal advisors has “now resulted in overwhelming evidence of organised espionage and corporate sabotage affecting MindsEye. Because this matter is moving toward prosecution, we cannot share the full details publicly yet.”

This statement has been met by quite a bit of criticism in the post’s comments section. Riot Games’ Nic McConnell, for instance, noted that Gerhard should not have combined the announcement of lay-offs with his own conspiracy theories. “These are people, this is their livelihood and your post is disrespectful to their contributions,” he wrote.

Gerhard had first brought up the conspiracy theory of there being a “concerted effort” by an unknown entity to finance negativity towards MindsEye all the way back in May 2025.

“I just said that there is a concerted effort by some people that don’t want to see [co-CEO Leslie Benzies] or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio,” wrote Gerhard the company’s official Discord server. “It’s pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out.”

More recently, as caught by IGN, Gerhard had accused YouTuber Cyber Boi of “media manipulation, espionage, sabotage” through another post on Discord.

“It is profoundly disappointing to learn that certain BARB employees continue to leak confidential information to you, thereby betraying their colleagues, our studio, and the broader community we serve,” he wrote.

“This letter serves as a formal cease and desist demand: You must immediately stop all activities related to receiving, disseminating, or otherwise utilizing any confidential information from BARB, as well as any further involvement in media manipulation, espionage, sabotage, or interference targeting our organization. Failure to comply will result in escalated legal action.”

“Rest assured, you and your associates involved in this media manipulation cabal will be served with legal papers imminently, as BARB proceeds with complaints alleging criminal espionage, sabotage, and interference. You are all in very serious trouble.”

Build a Rocket Boy has seen plenty of criticism, even from its own former employees. Back in February, several employees had called out the studio’s leadership for refusing to take accountability, and instead blaming “saboteurs inside and outside the company trying to take us down.” In the meantime, a spokesperson had also confirmed that Benzies had taken “a well-earned temporary leave to recharge after more than a year of working around the clock.”

MindsEye, for those still curious, is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review of its launch version for more details.

Speaking about the lay-offs affecting the studio, one former employee noted that leadership didn’t offer any real explanation for it. Rather, they pointed their fingers towards “saboteurs inside and outside the company trying to take us down.” This employee also noted that co-CEO Leslie Benzies refused to take any responsibility for the problems faced by Build a Rocket Boy.

“I’d hoped for more of an explanation about the layoffs and our company situation,” said the former employee. “But instead, we’d been told there were saboteurs inside and outside the company trying to take us down. Leslie didn’t seem to take any blame for the game’s launch. It was genuinely offensive that he didn’t trust his own employees. The idea that we’d sabotage a game we’d spent countless hours working on was just rude to me.”

Former lead data analyst at the studio, Ben Newbon, commented on the feature creep that afflicted MindsEye during its development. He noted that the game could have turned out well if there was a focus on polish and “tightening everything up”. However, Benzies would get fascinated by a new idea, which he would then insist be implemented into MindsEye.

“If management had concentrated on tightening everything up at that point, then it could have worked,” said Newbon. “But instead, they kept on trying to throw extra stuff on it. Leslie’s eye would be caught by something in particular and then insist this extra feature be added in, even like a month before launch. There wasn’t enough time to test those things and to get all the pieces in place to actually make it work without it breaking.”

Many staff members have also spoken about how much the development of MindsEye suffered due to the studio’s need to appease Benzies. “They crushed their own talent under the yoke of appeasing a single person at the very top,” they said. Another noted that: “[Benzies] may have had a winning formula if he’d have listened to the advice from the literal hundreds of fantastic, insanely talented, and hard-working industry professionals they spent so much time and money hiring.”

A spokesperson for Build a Rocket Boy has also confirmed that Benzies is currently on “a well-earned temporary leave to recharge after more than a year of working around the clock.”

This is far from the first time former employees of Build a Rocket Boy have spoken about the leadership’s failure during the development of MindsEye. Back in October, Newbon had noted that there were plenty of points during development where feedback was ignored by the leadership.

In the meantime, the studio has also become the subject of legal trouble at the hands of Britain’s IWGB Game Workers trade union. In a letter condemning the Build a Rocket Boy leadership, the union has also confirmed that it is looking into legal recourse for its former employees.

Apparently, the studio wants to foster in-house publishing and have more control for the sake of “faster decision-making,” “simpler communication”, and “greater control over the player experience.” What that could all mean remains to be seen, but this split reportedly means that the delayed Hitman collaboration won’t be happening.

And while Build a Rocket Boy will reportedly focus on further improving MindsEye and adding more content, there’s been nothing said about its “major adventure” set in the Starstream Universe (whatever that ended up being). Don’t even get us started on founder Leslie Benzies’ ambitious ten-year plan that would include multiplayer and a new free-roam title.

Expect an official announcement of the studio splitting from IO Interactive soon. As for what has been going on with MindsEye, it received an update that removed free roam and brought back user-created missions via ARCADIA. While there have been extensive layoffs, which were criticized by the IWGB Game Workers union, Build a Rocket Boy has still paid to sponsor content for the title despite lackluster player counts.

Comments on the YouTube video have noted this sponsorship, with one referring to MindsEye as being a “Morbius tier sponsor.” Another commenter expressed disbelief at the sponsorship and how out of place a similar sponsored video for cancelled live-service shooter Concord would have turned out.

Despite the studio’s continued spending on sponsored content for MindsEye, however, it hasn’t had a positive impact so far. A quick look at its player charts on SteamDB indicates that it is only getting a 24-hour peak of 22 concurrent players; a far cry from its all-time peak of 3,302 concurrent players from back when it first came out. The drop in player numbers came quickly, dropping to 280 in just a week, before sinking even deeper down to its current average. It is worth noting, however, that these numbers only represent PC players. As unlikely as it might seem, MindsEye might be doing better on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Interestingly, Build a Rocket Boy has continued to release updates for MindsEye since its release, with a major one coming out back in October that essentially removed open-world gameplay from the title. It was instead replaced with the return of ARCADIA—a way to experience player-generated content like missions and. It is essentially a way for the studio to meld its Play.MindsEye and Build.MindsEye features into a singular entity: Build.ARCADIA. Subsequent updates for MindsEye since then have brought in more featured ARCADIA content.

The development of MindsEye has been rocky. Back in October, former lead analyst at Build a Rocket Boy, Ben Newborn, accused the studio’s leadership of ignoring and laughing at issues with the game throughout its development. Former associate producer Margherita Peloso also brought up similar sentiments.

As for studio CEO Leslie Benzies, Newborn noted that he would often present the team with issues by simply playing builds of the game and pointing to things that needed changing or fixing. Referring to these demands as “Leslie tickets,” Newborn said, “It didn’t matter what else you were doing, what else was being worked on, the Leslie ticket had to be taken care of.”

Actor Alex Hernandez, who portrayed MindsEye protagonist Jacob Diaz, has also spoken about the negative reaction to the title, noting that he wasn’t sure if he would find work in the industry again.

“It’s a difficult thing to spend two-and-a-half years on a project that you’re really proud of, and you’re proud of your contribution to it. And I only had positive experiences working on it. The people I was working with, I was proud for them, of them, I wanted it to be a success for them just as much for myself,” he said.

For more details about MindsEye, check out our review.

ARCADIA is described as an “ever-expanding world of missions, races, puzzles, and challenges” within MindsEye. The campaign and side missions remain, and can be experienced offline, but ARCADIA is now a “streaming service,” which requires an internet connection at all times. There are even leaderboards, despite the sheer vacuum of a player base.

You can check out the trailer below for some examples of what ARCADIA represents. There’s no word on when Free Roam or its protagonist (known simply as “‘Can’t Drink Dust’ Guy”) will return.

However, from the outset, MindsEye appears to be sticking to its post-launch roadmap with these new modes, missions and multiplayer. The question now is whether it’s “major adventure in the Starstream universe,” slated for sometime this Winter, is on track. Or whether that open-world multiplayer title set one year after is still happening.

MindsEye is available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out our review of the base game – we gave it a five out of ten, praising the visuals and creation tools while lambasting pretty much everything else.

Former lead analyst Ben Newborn, who was in charge of collecting feedback, talks about how, “A lot of the points that we were hammering home on were just ignored and just never actioned.” Former associate producer Margherita Peloso echoes this, noting how higher-ups would laugh at her concerns.

Before the game’s launch, a video began making the rounds, showcasing how the studio would address feedback. It consisted of CEO Leslie Benzies playing and pointing out things to change or fix. As it turns out, this wasn’t simply for show.

Referred to as “Leslie tickets,” they would allegedly encompass removing entire missions. “It didn’t matter what else you were doing, what else was being worked on, the Leslie ticket had to be taken care of,” says Newborn. A former employee, Jamie (which isn’t their real name) said this prevent developers from “taking ownership of their work” on top of causing issues.

Where MindsEye goes from here remains to be seen. Following layoffs, Build A Rocket Boy has said nothing about the post-launch roadmap and whether a sequel is still happening. Stay tuned regardless and check out our review on the launch version.

Among the subjects broached by the union include Build a Rocket Boy’s lack of communications with its employees, long stretches of over-time work, especially in the four months leading up to the release of MindsEye where the company implemented a mandatory 8 hours of overtime per week, as well as the company’s “disastrous handling” of lay-offs. Along with this, the union has also called out Build a Rocket Boy for offering its employees Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) for the forced overtime, but still not allowing the employees to actually take the time off due to “high-priority” post-launch work on MindsEye.

“We stand in solidarity with employees and ex-employees at Build a Rocket Boy as they file legal claims through our union and publish an open letter, condemning the way in which they’ve been mistreated and discarded by the studio’s millionaire executives,” wrote the IWGB Game Workers union in a social media post.

According to the union, Build a Rocket Boy has caused quite a bit of “confusion and distress” for its staff in its handling of lay-offs. In the open letter, the union described the process as involving employees getting misinformation and being given dismissal notices with wrong notice periods, as well as being put in wrong teams to affect their internal performance metrics.

“These and many other issues, some of which have been made public already, have caused pain and stress for your employees,” wrote the union in its open letter. “Our experience at the company has been one of burnout, job insecurity, health issues, and the failure of a game that many of us have put years of our lives into. [Build a Rocket Boy] needs to change. CEOs need to take a backseat and allow the skilled people who remain at the company to forge the path ahead.”

The union is demanding a public apology from the company for its mistreatment of employees, proper compensation to those affected by lay-offs, the option for employees on redundancy notice to either work during their notice period or to take Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON), a concerted and documented effort to improve working conditions at the studio, and a commitment to use official external partners for future redundancies to prevent unfair treatment.

The open letter was signed by 93 employees and former employees of Build a Rocket Boy, along with the IWGB Game Workers leadership, and specifically calls out company leaders Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies for treating the studio’s employees badly.