MindsEye Launches With Multiple Issues And Zero Critic Reviews

MindsEye is the new sci-fi open-world game from Build a Rocket Boy, the studio founded by former GTA dev Leslie Benzies, and it launched last night (June 10, 2025) on all major platforms. However, it also launched with serious issues, and with no reviews from professional video game critics; either on its own is cause for concern, but together it adds up to a heck of a messy launch.

MindsEye was first revealed at Gamescom in 2022, but back then it was linked with EVERYWHERE, the now-defunct game-engine-as-game that Build a Rocket Boy was initially pushing. Subsequent trailers did little to clarify or alleviate concerns that MindsEye would be anywhere near as impressive as the studio was making out, and the launch has been met with less-than-favorable comments from players.

“Should have just delayed it for another two – three months,” said Reddit user bamila, in the official MindsEye channel. “Cutscenes and story are fine, city is alright. Gameplay has no spark to it and the performance on consoles is pure chaos. Also the NPCs’ movements sometimes are just full on glitch fest.”

Build a Better Game, Boy

While it’s not uncommon for new games, even supposed AAA titles, to launch and get a day one patch, the amount of reported issues for MindsEye feeds into the likely reason review code wasn’t shared with professional critics. Users have taken to the game’s Reddit channel, and other social media, to highlight issues, which the developers initially tried to shut down.

“One of the co-founders is alluding to the negative impressions being paid off,” said Reddit user Menitta, “and now they’re asking Twitch streamers who bought the game to stop streaming it. Likely to wait until the preorders lock in on PSN because this is one of the highest preordered games on PS5 at the moment.”

“The game is out today and has had no review codes sent to anyone. I’m sure they’re quite confident in their product,” he added.

“Thank you kindly to all of you who joined us as pioneers on day one!” MindsEye posted across its various official channels shortly after launch. “We understand that the current minimum spec requirements are very high, but our engineering team are working around the clock to improve performance on mainstream hardware as well as consoles by integrating the performance improvements in Unreal Engine V5.6. We will provide patch 3 update timing, including these improvements, within the next 24 hours. In addition to the main campaign, we would also value your thoughts on Build.Mindseye.”

This post was quickly inundated with complaints and comments detailing terrible graphics and performance on PC, PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles, with a few players confused as to why “mainstream hardware” and “consoles” weren’t considered the same thing. Others also called out the studio for asking for feedback on the Build.MindsEye in-game creation kit.

“Despite the fact half of your missions are built using the spatial mission editor with a cinematic placed before it, I would highly encourage that you focus on the issues being flagged on your release day rather than the future viability of people making UGC (User Generated Content) for you,” said Reddit user Legitimate_Back_7058.

Too Many Complaints For One Server

The official MindsEye Discord has not been immune to aggrieved players, either. While this has its defenders, the amount of negative comments got so overwhelming and chaotic that an admin had to create a new chat channel.

Users have also been relaying news that PlayStation is offering refunds, no questions asked. “All I mentioned was MindsEye and false advertisement and got the refund faster than cancelling a preorder,” said BigBoiOozaru. 

Others have noted that the voice acting and story are decent, and the game runs fairly well on Xbox Series X despite occasional frame drops and graphical glitches. However, no major outlets were given advance or review copies, so gamers hoping for an official viewpoint on how well the game runs on different devices, as well as if the game has any saving graces, will have to wait.

We Were Promised Triple-A MineCraft

The MindsEye “explainer” trailer, released on May 27, was an objectively grandiose mission statement, that happily threw around terms like “innovative” and “groundbreaking”, and promised that it would put the “superpower of game development” in players’ hands, all seemingly without any self-awareness. 

Reactions to this trailer were largely negative; something the studio’s Co-CEO Mark Gerhard spoke about in the MindsEye Discord channel at the time.

When asked if he believed all negative press was being financed, he said: “100%. Doesn’t take much to guess who.” Another user noted that it was wild a Co-CEO would imply another game studio was involved in the negative press, to which Gerhard said: “Not wild when it’s true.” 

At the same time, Gerhard was very vocal about what players could expect from MindsEye, including “I think of it as a AAA MineCraft.” This comment was also in relation to Build.MindsEye, the successor to Build a Rocket Boy’s EVERYWHERE game/game engine. 

EVERYWHERE is No More

When EVERYWHERE was announced it came with a lot of big talk and big ideas, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Plenty of game studios hype themselves and their products, although it’s worth noting just what gets promised versus the cold reality of what gets delivered. 

“We want the community to build this. We want it to be their world. We want them to tell their stories in our game,” Leslie Benzies said in an EVERYWHERE reveal trailer in August 2022. “I think it’s human nature to navigate uncharted territory, to find a place where we’re free to explore, to be creative, and to share amazing experiences.”

EVERYWHERE had been in development for five years before the 2022 announcement, and was also the engine used to create MindsEye, meaning that this game has effectively had eight years of work behind it. Now, EVERYWHERE as a separate product no longer exists, as it has instead, in a weird example of the snake eating its own tail, been folded into MindsEye as Build.MindsEye. 

Mark Gerhard has been part of Build a Rocket Boy since 2022, and before that was the founder of PlayFusion, the game studio behind Ascendant, which it calls “capture-the-flag…on crack.” Gerhard said he joined Benzies as “For me it was about democratising AAA game development for the community.”

“EVERYWHERE will be in MindsEye,” he added. “It’s the same source code (as Build.MindsEye).” 

Players on console have been disappointed to find that Build.MindsEye is unavailable to them, although this was made clear a few weeks ago, when Gerhard posted that it requires controller support and moderation tools, and as such will take more time to implement.

At the time of writing, MindsEye was reported as being on version 1.003 (on PS5), with a third patch still set to appear.

Editor’s note: We reached out to Mark Gerhard for further comments, but he declined.