MindsEye Continues Its Comeback Attempt With New Blacklisted Content
- MindsEye gets a major update: new Blacklisted story campaign via ARCADIA and a price drop from $60 to $34.99 to revive interest.
- The update arrives amid controversy over workplace conditions, sabotage claims, and a canceled Hitman crossover with IO Interactive.
- Early player reactions remain mixed to negative despite gameplay improvements and added content.
Build a Rocket Boy, the studio founded by the lead producer of GTA III to V, Leslie Benzies, is nothing if not persistent; it’s rolled out a new story mission for the much-maligned MindsEye, as well as a price drop. The game was initially released in June 2025 at a $60 price point across all major platforms, and stayed at this level despite the game receiving abysmal feedback from critics and players. Now, it retails for $34.99.
Build a Rocket Boy is also hoping the new content, Blacklisted, helps bring new players into the game, or at least convince existing gamers that MindsEye is finally worthwhile. Blacklisted features Julie Black, an assassin tasked with eliminating multiple targets who have plans to sabotage Meridian, the spy agency she works for. Ironically, Build a Rocket Boy came under fire recently for installing surveillance software on employees’ computers.
Mark Gerhard, Co-CEO and CTO of Build a Rocket Boy, said “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.”
“Rather than traditional DLC, Blacklisted is delivered through our user-generated content platform ARCADIA, which is built into MindsEye,” he added.
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Build a Lawsuit, Boy
Blacklisted arrives under a cloud of bad publicity for Build a Rocket Boy that covers more than just negative game reviews. Staff at the studio posted an open letter about unfavorable work conditions last year, compounded by Benzies and Gerhard being very vocal about alleged “saboteurs” actively working against the studio.
While Benzies has largely remained silent in the last few months, Gerhard has not. He’s the former CEO of Jagex, where he helped build Runescape into a popular MMO before leaving Jagex in 2014. Even then he had a reputation for being plain-spoken, and this is very much the case nowadays too: in a recent interview with GamesBeat, he said that “We’re also using [Blacklisted] to share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community.”
Blacklisted – aside from its on-the-nose name – is also for all intents and purposes a retooling of a failed Hitman crossover; this was originally set for release thanks to Build a Rocket Boy’s partnership with publishers IO Interactive, the creators of Hitman. However, this was dissolved at the end of March this year following the aforementioned troubles.
As for the “evidence” hidden in Blacklisted, from early reviews it’s apparent this amounts to little else than allusions to those Gerhard has already publicly called-out. This primarily includes Ritual Network, an influencer agency that Gerhard claimed is “a very big American company” that’s actually based in this writer’s hometown of Scunthorpe in the UK.
Ritual Network, for its part, offered a statement in February: “We are not aware of any legitimate legal action involving Ritual Network and have not been provided with any evidence supporting these claims. Any suggestion that Ritual Network is connected to these allegations is incorrect.”
User-Generated Content
It’s too early to tell if the double-whammy of “new content and price drop” will have an impact on MindsEye, let alone a positive one, but early signs don’t look good. The official MindsEye Reddit is already being filled with impressions from players and they’re not entirely favorable.
Even so, Build a Rocket Boy has also updated the base game. These include improvements to civilian and NPC behavior so they should be “more reactive to their environment and will flee in response to certain sights,” and tweaks to ARCADIA on PC, which lets players create their own content for MindsEye.
