High on ambition but low on original ideas
In the long tradition of creative ventures that stumble before they find their footing, Build a Rocket Boy has released a new update and lowered the price of MindsEye, hoping to trace the arc of Cyberpunk 2077's unlikely rehabilitation. The studio, founded by former Rockstar North head Leslie Benzies after a bitter legal departure, launched MindsEye in 2025 to critical failure and has since faced not only player indifference but allegations of employee surveillance from within its own walls. The Blacklisted update — featuring an assassin dismantling a conspiracy from inside a company — arrives as either an act of defiant self-awareness or an unintentional confession, depending on how generously one reads it. With only 26 concurrent Steam players despite the new content, the question of whether ambition can outlast its own wreckage remains unanswered.
- A game that launched broken and scorned is now being offered at a steep discount, with new story content attached — a studio's last, visible bet on its own survival.
- The new mission casts players as an assassin exposing internal saboteurs, a narrative so close to Build a Rocket Boy's own legal and reputational crisis that it reads less like fiction and more like a public statement.
- The Cyberpunk 2077 comeback model looms over everything here — but that game had millions of players to win back; MindsEye is working with 26 concurrent users on Steam.
- Employees have sued the studio over alleged secret surveillance software installed on their devices, compounding the sense that the organization is fighting battles on every front simultaneously.
- Leadership speaks of fresh starts and future expansions, but the market has so far responded with silence — console numbers are hidden, and the PC data offers little comfort.
Build a Rocket Boy is attempting the kind of post-launch redemption that Cyberpunk 2077 made famous — releasing the Blacklisted update for MindsEye alongside a permanent price cut to $34.99 standard and $47.99 deluxe, hoping a lower barrier and new content can revive a game that arrived broken and left most players cold.
The new content is hard to read without irony. Players step into the role of Julia Black, a world-class assassin hired to dismantle a criminal network sabotaging a company from within. The mission, originally conceived as a Hitman crossover before IO Interactive withdrew, retains some of that collaboration's open-ended design — multiple targets, multiple approaches — and runs under an hour. It arrives not as traditional DLC but through Arcadia, the game's user-generated content platform, which the studio is positioning as a pillar of MindsEye's future.
The studio's leadership framed the update as a turning point, promising further expansions and pointing to over a year of post-launch improvements. The argument is familiar: the game is better now, it costs less, and players have tools to shape their own experiences inside Redrock City. It is the pitch of a team that has not given up, even as the evidence mounts against them.
MindsEye's collapse was swift and public. Leslie Benzies — who spent decades at Rockstar North guiding the Grand Theft Auto series before a legal falling-out led to a confidential settlement — founded Build a Rocket Boy to make this game. When it launched in summer 2025, it was riddled with bugs, thin on original ideas, and earned a 4 out of 10 from IGN. The studio's troubles deepened this month when employees filed suit after leadership allegedly admitted to installing covert surveillance software on staff devices.
Steam currently shows 26 concurrent players. Console figures remain unpublished. The price cut and new mission have not, at least yet, moved the needle. Whether that number grows into something sustainable — or whether MindsEye becomes a cautionary tale about ambition that never found its execution — is the question the Blacklisted update has set in motion but cannot yet answer.
Build a Rocket Boy is trying to pull off what Cyberpunk 2077 managed: turn a catastrophic launch into a comeback story. Today, the studio released the Blacklisted update to MindsEye and slashed the game's price to $34.99 for the standard edition and $47.99 for the deluxe—a permanent cut meant to lower the barrier for players willing to give the troubled crime game another chance.
The new content is almost aggressively on-the-nose. You play as Julia Black, a world-class assassin tasked with dismantling a criminal network that's sabotaging a company from within. The subtext barely qualifies as subtext. The mission itself is fairly brief, clocking in at under an hour, and was originally designed as a crossover with the Hitman franchise before publisher IO Interactive stepped away. What remains carries the DNA of that collaboration—multiple targets, open-ended design, multiple approaches to completion. It's the first new story campaign MindsEye has received since launching last summer, and it arrives through Arcadia, the game's user-generated content platform, rather than as traditional DLC.
Build a Rocket Boy's leadership framed the update as a fresh start. Gerhard, speaking for the studio, called Blacklisted the beginning of MindsEye's future and promised further expansions down the road. The pitch was clear: the game has spent over a year receiving enhancements and new content, the entry price is now more accessible, and players and creators have tools to build their own experiences within Redrock City, the game's setting. It reads like a studio betting everything on the idea that enough polish and enough player agency can salvage what launched as a disaster.
But the numbers tell a different story. Steam shows MindsEye with 26 concurrent players as of the update's release. Console player counts remain opaque—Sony and Microsoft don't publish those figures publicly—but the PC data alone suggests the price cut and new mission haven't moved the needle in any meaningful way.
MindsEye's fall from promise to punchline was swift. The game launched in summer 2025 as the passion project of Leslie Benzies, the former head of Rockstar North who spent decades shepherding the Grand Theft Auto franchise and the original Red Dead Redemption. After stepping away from Rockstar following GTA V, Benzies claimed the studio forced him out and sued. The two sides reached a confidential settlement, and Benzies founded Build a Rocket Boy to make MindsEye—an action-adventure crime game set in the near future, clearly drawing from the GTA playbook. Years of development and a subdued marketing campaign preceded the launch. When it arrived, the game was broken. Comical bugs, mediocre gameplay, a forgettable story. IGN's review gave it a 4 out of 10, describing it as "high on ambition but low on original ideas."
The studio's troubles extended beyond the game itself. Earlier this month, MindsEye staff filed suit against Build a Rocket Boy after company leadership allegedly admitted to installing secret surveillance software on employee devices. The lawsuit added another layer of damage to a studio already fighting for credibility.
The Blacklisted update represents a calculated gamble: that a lower price, new content, and the promise of more to come can convince players to return to a game that disappointed them. Whether 26 concurrent players on Steam will grow into anything resembling a sustainable player base remains the question that will define whether this redemption bid succeeds or becomes another cautionary tale about ambition outpacing execution.
Citações Notáveis
Blacklisted marks the first new story campaign for MindsEye since launch, and we're excited to welcome players back to Redrock City to experience it in a new way.— Gerhard, Build a Rocket Boy
High on ambition but low on original ideas.— IGN review, 4/10
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a game studio release an update where you play as an assassin taking down conspirators within a company, right after their own employees sued them for surveillance?
Because they're trying to control the narrative. If you're going to have a scandal, you might as well acknowledge it in the game itself—make it part of the story. It's a way of saying, "We know what happened, we're addressing it," without actually addressing it.
Does that actually work? Can a video game mission make people forget about real lawsuits?
Not really. But it signals that the studio is aware, that they're not pretending nothing happened. The problem is the execution has to be flawless, and MindsEye's track record suggests it won't be.
Leslie Benzies built Grand Theft Auto. How does someone with that pedigree end up here?
Pedigree doesn't guarantee success, especially when you're starting fresh. He had the vision, the experience, the resources. But vision alone doesn't make a game work. You need the right team, the right timing, the right decisions at a thousand small moments. He got some of those wrong.
Is a price cut enough to bring people back?
Only if there's something worth coming back to. Twenty-six players on Steam suggests people aren't convinced yet. A cheaper entry point helps, but it doesn't erase the memory of a broken launch.
What would actually save this game?
Time, honestly. Consistent updates, real improvements to the core gameplay, a community that believes in it. Cyberpunk pulled it off, but that took years and a massive studio behind it. Build a Rocket Boy is smaller, quieter, and already wounded.